From August 1 to 23, 2026, Espace Saint-Ravy is delighted to host EROSION, an exhibition bringing together a selection of works by artist Olivier Secretan. Through these works, the artist reflects on our ability to rebuild ourselves. An invitation to see our fractures not as endings, but as the new forms that time gives to our lives. Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Opening reception on Friday, July 31 at 6:30 p.m. “For the first time, EROSION brings together three distinct periods of my work, which now reveal the stages of a single journey: from fracture to reconstruction, from falling to rising. Across different media—metal, wood, acrylic, spray paint, and oil paint—the same question runs throughout the exhibition: how does time transform our wounds? Erosion is a slow process. It does not make rock disappear; it changes its shape, reveals its cracks, and sometimes lightens memory without ever erasing it. I see this process as a metaphor for our own existence. Accidents, breakups, grief, and illness shape our inner landscapes just as the elements sculpt stone. The earliest works, created on metal or inspired by ancient fragments, bear the traces of humanity, its history, and its memory. They evoke both what endures and what fades away. The abstract paintings mark a more intimate period. Created during a succession of painful ordeals, they emerged when I abandoned any desire for representation and embraced an instinctive, urgent practice. Painting became an outlet, a daily and almost vital act. The forms, materials, and colors bear the traces of this passage. These works do not recount a specific event; they embody a state, a tension, an attempt to survive. Finally, the rocks appear, now the central motif of my work. Monumental mineral masses defying their own gravity. Rather than presenting suffering as something fixed, these rocks gradually become lighter. Subjected to erosion, they transform, crack, and rise until they levitate. They become witnesses to the possibility of resilience and renewal. The stones do not disappear; they find a new balance. EROSION reflects on our ability to rebuild ourselves. An invitation to see our fractures not as endings, but as the new forms that time gives to our lives. Because, as we know, nothing disappears; everything is transformed.” Olivier Secretan ### BIOGRAPHY Olivier Secretan, also known as Ose, was born in Paris in 1984. Deeply influenced by Soulages’s Outrenoir paintings and later by Hartung’s linework, he decided to devote himself to painting. He later taught himself the art of stenciling. Ose regularly paints in the streets of Montpellier, Paris, and Bruxelles. He stands out for the precision of his cutting, making lines more complex rather than simplifying them. He developed his own technique, using only two layers but incorporating more detail. From 2016 onward, Olivier Secretan took part in numerous group exhibitions at galerie Nicolas-Xavier, galerie Nicole Gogat, and the La Galerie Éphémère festival at the Salines de Villeneuve-lès- Maguelone, within the protected natural site of the Salines de Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone. For Oxyde, his first solo exhibition at Galerie Nicolas-Xavier in 2019, he presented works created with seawater through selective rusting. In 2020, he took part in X,Y,Z, a group exhibition at the Archives départementales de l’Hérault, Pierrevives. In 2023, in collaboration with the association Line Up, he painted murals of Mandela and Gandhi in Montpellier before exhibiting at Réservoir in Sète.
Event from the official Montpellier calendar; location: Montpellier; address: 2 Rue Cauzit, 34000, Montpellier.
Source: Agenda Montpellier