Mona Lisa- A new approach to an Old Masterpiece
French Artist Oliver Ney creates unique artwork out of 3000 recycled spraycan caps
Hello art people,
Welcome to March.
This is my Birthday month, so I tend to get very enthusiastic, and with my first trip to art Dubai complete and also getting the best inspiration by seeing the tiniest Andy Warhol flower painting, that was just so perfectly on brand for tinyartprincess, I am feeling like you guys will get a proper dose of art content this month.
I’ve mentioned the art world functioning in “seasons” before, and to continue along with that train of thought, I believe that March tends to be the month where the art world starts to wake up a bit. We don’t really tend to see a lot of activity in January or February, and I would gather that this is because people aren’t generally in the mood to go out and spend money on art. Now, with the first weekend of March completed, the art world been host to both Art Dubai and Frieze Los Angeles, which has been a nice way kickstart the spring art season.
I am not reviewing Art Dubai in this article today, because I'm not quite ready to do so yet (but soon). Traditional journalists have written their articles and thoughts on the art fairs before I have even looked at my photos, even though a lot of times I am actually at the preview. I admire this talent and speed immensely, but my style is a bit slower, and I like to take a (probably overly) curated approach as well as a casual, organic method to describing art shows and art fair experiences. Plus, I can’t wait to share the unique approach to the work of this amazing French artist that I discovered through my job with the gallery. However, if you want some art homework, you get ahead and can read good information on Art Dubai here.
The artist I want to talk about today is called Oliver Ney.
I had briefly shared the “Mona Lisa” artwork on my instagram story, but his work and his technique impressed me so much that I felt they deserved more explanation. The story is also quite sentimental, as he started the creation of this artwork at the beginning of lockdown in March of 2020, which if you can believe, was four years ago this month.
Oliver Ney is a young, Parisian (Paris, France) self-taught artist, who refers to himself as a “pixel” artist, as his pieces decompose images and figures, and are represented in colour dots. He is a disciple of a famous artistic technique known as pointillism, which is a painting technique where small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image.
At the beginning of lockdown, he began an artistic project that had been on his mind for a while. Having kept a good number of spray paint caps, he used them to create his first work representing the iconic figure of "the Joker". The collage made of multicolored recycled spray caps received a very good reception from the graffiti community and gained popularity right away. By June of 2020, MTN World ( a world-leading spray painting company) had written an article showcasing his “Joker” piece, which you can read here. Montana Colours loved the unique way Oliver Ney approached recycling the packaging, which is an important part of the brand's philosophy.
In his work, each “pixel” is actually a recycled spray-can nozzle that has been painted to fit into the image, and then attached to the base. The amount of work and detail that goes into this is wild; some of his pieces have consisted of over 3000 spray caps. Ney approached his “bomb” dealers ( bomb =a graffiti art term for a specific type of spray-paint can), and requested that they ask their customers to bring back their caps so that they can be repurposed into the creation of the pieces! He now receives hundreds of caps each month to create more art work.
I not only love this unique idea, I really appreciate the skill, attention to detail and patience that goes into the creation and construction of these pieces. The Mona Lisa one is by far my favourite and it is perfection; it actually looks exactly like the painting. “Girl with the Pearl Earring” (originally a Masterpiece by Johannes Vermeer) is a close second. The idea of recycled graffiti items being turned into fine artworks, especially to the likeness of Old Masterpieces, is not an easy thing to do and he executes this brilliantly. Some of his work is for sale here.
Some people at the gallery have asked me if the picture was made out of recycled coffee pods; the answer is no, but I can kind of see it. I am actually not currently aware of any artists creating work out of recycled coffee pods, but it’s not a bad idea. If you know any artists that are doing this, please let me know!
I also know another graffiti artist from Calgary, Canada called GRAFXNINE, that creates these cute flower pieces out of old MTN spray cans; you can see his instagram here.
Even though their individual creations are different, it is a really cool thing to be able to see young street artists echoing each other across the world through their common artistic language of repurposing these used-and-recycled spray cans, into beautiful and unique art pieces.
I am so happy to have more people reading now from all over the world.
Thanks for tapping into my tiny art world, and I hope that this post energizes and inspires you wherever you are on a Tuesday, and at the beginning of the month.
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XOXO