Olow x Geoffroy Pithon

It's Geoffroy Pithon's turn, a French painter whose work we've followed for a long time, to invest the playground of our Blend Energy spring-summer collection through a capsule with bucolic accents. He unfolds his free and colorful universe, inviting us on a timeless stroll. Through clothing and fabric, he creates landscapes between figuration and abstraction, inspired by an aquatic and geological nature, populated by imaginary plants.

Between "mad gardener" and "color artisan" according to his own words, he imagines this collaboration as the wardrobe of this character. Nestled in La Montagne, a few miles from Nantes, he opens the doors of his house/studio, on the banks of the Loire. An opportunity to revisit his work and the universe of this collaboration that we are very proud to present today.

Could you introduce yourself in a few words?

I am Geoffroy Pithon. I define myself as an artist, which gives me enough freedom to navigate between different practices.
Painting is my main medium; it allows me to explore many formats: installations, exhibitions, projects… it’s incredibly stimulating.

You started as a graphic designer. How did you transition to art?

I couldn't say precisely when it shifted. Even when I was making posters with the Formes Vives collective, I had a real interest in pictorial questions. There was a lot of room for all kinds of experimentation. Little by little, I started working by hand, drawing, painting... and that took up more and more space. After ten years in the collective, I wanted to open myself up, to step out of the framework of visual communication and move towards something freer, more personal.

You learned to paint as a self-taught artist, notably by watching artists like Cy Twombly and other artists in action?

Yes. I didn't go to art school. I learned by tinkering, experimenting, and watching a lot. Books, videos, artists at work... that helped me confirm an intuition I already had. Watching them allowed me to progress and permit myself certain things. There's this question of legitimacy that comes up quite quickly. Watching others do it allowed me to tell myself that I could do it my own way.

What are your influences?

It's always hard to make a list. There are, of course, essential artists like Matisse, Hockney, Bonnard, Sonia Delaunay, or Nathalie Du Pasquier, particularly for their relationship to color, which is central to my work. But my influences go far beyond painting. I draw a lot from music, cinema, writing, sports... It's a form of accumulation that feeds my practice. I was a musician before being an artist, and I still am. There's a very strong link between the two, especially in the way of creating. Music is abstract by nature, and it has always seemed natural to me not to compartmentalize between figurative and abstraction.

Can you tell us about your creative process?

I work primarily on paper, and with paints that I make myself in the studio. The medium greatly influences my way of working; paper behaves very differently from canvas. It doesn't have the same rendering or the same effects. I use acrylic, which dries very quickly, allowing me to work at a fairly spontaneous pace. I paint in very different contexts: at a table on small formats, in my studio, or outdoors on large formats, sometimes in quite extreme conditions. More than a fixed process, it's a desire to paint everywhere, adapting to places, formats, and situations. I don't really work on specific subjects. Instead, I build a language, step by step. Color often comes first, and shapes follow.

You mentioned different formats; can you tell us about the Botanique Murmure project?

It's a series of about thirty small-format watercolors. I often say "at the table" because I work on them like a draftsman, which allows me to get an overall view quite quickly. Usually, I work on a large scale, so I'm more immersed in the painting without immediate perspective, with my head in it. Here, on the contrary, I see the compositions appearing more directly. Even if I talk about watercolor, the technique is a bit diverted. I don't work with the same paper; I have less of the watery effect. In fact, I use watercolor cubes like gouaches, which allows me to have more material and precision. It's also a practical technique for reproducible projects, especially for scans or prints, while retaining a lot of detail. You can find many pencil marks that would tend to get lost more in my large-format work. That's kind of how I worked on one of the collaboration's shirts. The print comes from a watercolor.

By the way, could you tell us about the genesis of some of the pieces or motifs in the collaboration?

In my work, the only somewhat figurative element is the vegetal. But I'm not trying to represent real plants. They are rather forms that evoke them, stems, branches, things that can recall petals or trees. It's not a subject in itself, it's more an entry point to abstraction. The vegetal has something infinite; it allows me to construct free images without completely losing sight. For me, this universe encompasses much more than plants. It can be landscapes, seabeds, organic forms... It's not necessarily something tangible, it's more a sensation. At times, one thinks they recognize elements, precisely thanks to the stems, to the rhythms they create. The petals, the leaves bring flat areas, crossings of forms. Nature remains a very generous playground in the way it can be interpreted. All this comes from memories, from things seen, experienced, transformed. Nothing really comes from nowhere. I am very much influenced by what surrounds me. In the collection, we inevitably find a bit of this flow. I don't start from a precise inspiration. It's rather a given moment in my journey, in my work, and the collaboration fits into that.
At OLOW, there is also a real place for drawing. I went in that direction, even if it's not my main practice. There's also writing, which I use a lot in my work.

I write by hand, especially for the shape of the letters, almost like a drawing. The meaning remains important, but it's primarily a matter of rhythm and gesture.
I see it as an extension of drawing, another way of making shapes appear.

How did you find the balance between your world and OLOW's?

As I said, a lot of it comes down to drawing. But there's also the whole question of technical constraints. OLOW works with fairly artisanal processes, which aren't necessarily those of classic printing. In the end, the piece closest to my work remains the printed shirt, directly derived from a painting. The drawings, on the other hand, are more a way for the brand to appropriate elements of my language. The balance is found there. Between what OLOW can produce, technically and economically, and what I initially bring as material. I offer a kind of toolbox with fragments of my universe, samples, pieces of painting, patterns... And then, all of that finds its form. Each collaboration is different; it must find its own balance. What I try to put into it, and which I hope is reflected in this collection, is something free, quite joyful. There's always this desire for color, vibration, gaiety.

To conclude, I'd like to revisit the entire collaboration, because some pieces were conceived from start to finish. Can you tell us about them?

Yes, and that's what's interesting: some pieces started from sketches I made, then Olow designed them. What I like is that it's not a direct transposition of my work into clothing. It's more a way of creating pieces that I would want to wear. I don't dress myself in paint, but in simpler, rawer things. There's a form of homage to workshop clothes, to work clothes. With Olow, it takes on another dimension, with more contemporary details, materials, embroideries, pockets, collars... A balance between simplicity and attention to detail.

Photographs: Nina Ducleux