Born in 1976 in Charleroi (BE)
Graduating from the Ecole Supérieure de l’Image “Le 75” in Brussels, in 2001, Olivier Cornil became the assistant for the architecture photographer Serge Brison. As of 2003, he dedicated himself entirely to the pop rock group Girls in Hawaii, whom he accompanied on tour and for whom he designed their album sleeves, provided photo coverage and made short films projected during concerts. Once home, Olivier Cornil made a name for himself with the series Mon pays noir, which looked back over his childhood. After several photographic assignments in Belgium and abroad, Olivier Cornil published a collection called Homeland Vladivostok, on travelling and the virtues of chance. He recently made a series of portraits of discreet heroes within the framework of the Mons Superstar exhibition.
Olivier Cornil’s photos are an invitation to travel. They transport us into the distance and confront us with other places. And yet, it is the close and the personal that he photographs with as much intensity as curiosity. Olivier Cornil is also an author. His images are always accompanied by fragments of texts, impressions that have appeared during his travels and fleeting, improbable encounters. They provide us with another relationship with the world, warm, poetic and stories to be made up.
