Born in 1972 in Paris (FR)
Olivier Kosta-Théfaine has no training and started from nothing. Or rather he did – the suburbs to the west of Paris. He denies belonging to any particular trend or movement, despite constant and passive activity in the street under a pseudonym. In 2005, he created his Low Budget questioning the very notion of artwork with spray cans, not on canvas. Since then, he continues to use poor media associated with graffiti, with a slightly dirty rendering, and raw, harsh materials, with which he is able to create a certain poetry. Among other things, he has worked on the theme of the herbarium by inscribing, on ceilings, using a lighter flame, the names of ‘difficult’ housing estates in France that are named after plants (Les Acacias, Epinette or Les Marronniers), or recreated French-style gardens using shards from broken glass bottles. In each of his interventions, Olivier Kosta-Théfaine plays with the codes of popular culture. He uses the clichés concerning these housing estates to better reinterpret them. His aim is to confront the public with the reality of town planning in the suburbs, tinged with a certain failure. However, he asserts, above all, through his works, that he belongs to this concrete world, and defines himself as a pure product of the suburbs, always between brutality and poetry.
