PRESS RELEASE: New Collection: PARADOX – The Gospel of Shadows
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Olivier Salvas Unveils New Exhibition: PARADOX – The Gospel of Shadow - Opening May 22, 2025 | Bean Hastings Gallery | Vancouver, BC
Following the critical success of Flamboyant (2021), his award-winning abstract series celebrated across Canada and beyond, Olivier Salvas returns to his signature bold style with a new body of work that is both visually arresting and conceptually charged. In PARADOX – The Gospel of Shadows, Olivier Salvas blends acrylic, aerosol, and pastel to create vibrant, emotionally layered paintings that anchor the exhibition’s central theme, contradiction. These new works mark a powerful return to colour for the artist, dynamic, saturated, and deeply expressive, yet now adapted to the darker, more symbolic universe of PARADOX. The paintings speak to internal conflict and fractured identity, using shadow as a motif for all we conceal, carry, and confront.
Surrounding and informing the paintings is a narrative-driven photographic series taken by Rory McLeod, shot in a grainy, vintage style that contrasts sharply with the explosive energy of the painted works. Rather than serve as mere companions, the photographs deepen the tension, adding a nostalgic stillness that intensifies the emotional friction. Together, the two mediums create a world where light and darkness, colour and grayscale, clarity and distortion all coexist, yet never quite align.
At the heart of PARADOX are five symbolic characters, The Fallen Artist, The Vampire Politician, The Time Traveler, The Evil Preacher, and The Urban Monster. Each one embodies a different contradiction of modern life, from the romanticization of the past versus the demands of the present, to the illusion of political progress and the chaos masked as order. These personas move through a surreal psychological landscape, confronting themes of vanity, fear, repression, nostalgia, and extremism.Olivier Salvas invites viewers to question where they sit within these tensions. In a time when society demands clarity, PARADOX insists that the truth lies in the shadow, the space between extremes, where our complexities take shape. Olivier asks: ” Who are we without a shadow?”
EXHIBITION DETAILS:
Title: PARADOX – The Gospel of Shadows by Olivier Salvas Artiste
Venue: Bean Hastings Gallery, 175 W Hastings St, Vancouver, BC
Starting May 22nd, 2025
Admission: Free, All are welcome
Artist on site Thursday, May 22nd 5-7PM and Saturday, May 24th 1-3 PM. More times to follow.
For media inquiries, interviews, or press images, please contact oli@oliviersalvas.com . High-resolution images and full press kit available upon request.
Contact: Olivier Salvas
Website: www.oliviersalvas.com
Instagram: @olivier.salvas
