Olivia Joret studied Visual Arts and Contemporary Critical Theory at Goldmiths College, London, UK and Painting at Sint-Lucas Hogeschool, Brussels, BE. She obtained a Master of Arts at the European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, CH and Valetta, MA.

“In my work, I’m developing a practical esthetics of affective wit(h)nessing that I call “gommage”, in a wordplay between a historical homage and dommage (damage), and in reference to the materiality of paint (“gomme” or gum is thereby understood not as an eraser, but as a binding agent). Paint, as a transubjective medium, can be understood metaphorically as a seal or a fold, whereby it is always already overpainting something, which may not be visible or immediately perceptible, but which, in its doing, is partly unfolded, disclosed; “scratching” the very surface it (un)covers.

Gommage treasures a reference to a fine art medium or ingredient, but it is not medium bound. It finds expressions in collaborative writing, elements of performance and installation, various forms of (over)painting as well as audiovisual work with archive material, that, as a case study, seek to propose a possible wit(h)nessing of a site called “De Hoge Bergen” (The High Mountains) in the Antwerp Campine Region in Belgium. From agricultural wasteland over industrial terrain to more recently a nature park, whilst also being a neighborhood, connected to the port of Antwerp via a historical canal, and once upon a time globally via a now dismantled (private) airport, the site’s (dis)continuities are being explored through samplings, collective mappings and narrations. The work is being elaborated and shared in the contexts of Level 5, Brussels artist collective, of which I am a member, ASBL Constant VZW, also in Brussels, with whom I have an ongoing working relation, as well as several connected artists and researchers from various fields, in Europe and beyond.”

Joret lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.