Bebop Loneliness

about Olivier Bonhomme

I’ve never been lonely. I’ve been in a room
I’ve felt suicidal. I’ve been depressed
I’ve felt awful, awful beyond all
But I never felt that one other person could enter that room
and cure what was bothering me

Charles Bukowski

As a big fan of jazz and saxophonist for the past twenty years, Olivier Bonhomme creates his scratched universe with the sound of bebop and swing. Sometimes the feeling of big city loneliness, without dreams, is immediate and can make you sad, but an air of irony and sensuality is always there, just waiting around the corner, ready to give you new hope.

A journey not to be missed.

A good artist is a solitary person, or is always surrounded by people?

I think it’s a meddle ground between the two. You can not create decently if you are not alone at any given time, and you always need others. It’s the paradox of Kant: the unsocial sociability of being that best characterizes the “good artist”, in my opinion.
The act of creating is natural, instinctive. It is an act in and out of reality, a breath. You are alone, then you turn towards others, and so on.

Something on your reference artists:

Two of the artists that have marked and influenced me the most are Jean Giraud — Moebius — and Nicolas de Crecy. There are many others, classic and contemporary, but as regards the field of pure drawing, these two have persecuted my pencils during all my studies.

What are the limits between loneliness and madness?

There are no limits to madness. It can come from anything, it’s necessary. It’s not loneliness that is dangerous in the creative process, it’s the rhythm of life, the habits, the difficulty of living your job in a healthy way.
Today, although there is no real human interaction, social networks connect us constantly to our family, to our friends, to our community. All this is not virtual. It’s as real as the images that we create and that make us live, because it’s our job.
Today there are no boundaries between madness, loneliness and reality. Everything is mixed up in a sort of fascinating brothel. A ball of yarn that you patiently unravel, while its threads are constantly creating, always.

Your first sketch:

I do not know… Definitely a sailboat!

Thanks