Rister, or deconstructed happiness

How do you draw happiness which, by definition, cannot be seen? For Invisible Happiness, Rister answered in his own way: by deconstructing the landscape until only the essential remains: a shape, a color, a sensation. A painter, illustrator, and tattoo artist, he opened the doors of his studio to us.

Hello, Antoine (Rister), thank you for welcoming us here into your studio. An obviously essential first question that echoes our collection: "Invisible Happiness," what does that evoke for you?

Rister: A vast question, but for me, it speaks to the small moments of joy we feel when we have our heads outdoors, always with that connection to nature. This theme is incredibly broad and unifying, and that's what I love about Olow: a simple word placed on a collection, universal and multiple at the same time. For an artist, it's very comfortable because you can come and clear the path in your own way. I played the game to the fullest, almost like a school exercise: going to find my ideas from within the theme. It even brought me back to things I don't do much anymore, the little characters from "Feed my garden" watering their plants, a more illustrative register than my painting today.

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Speaking of which, your painting today leans toward the sign, the form... can you tell us about it?

R: Everything came from painting. After years of illustration and tattooing, I wanted my canvases to take their own direction: compositions, shapes, colors, textures, rather than the simple representation of something. The reflection is still there, it just carries elsewhere, onto the way of arranging shapes and colors. I build a repertoire of shapes that resemble me, just as an illustrator refines their character until it becomes their signature, and I recompose them infinitely. Everything started from the landscape: the south of France, my grandmother's house, where I return every year to recharge. I sought to paint these places in the most personal way possible, the least recognizable at first glance.

Is there a shape that has followed you from the beginning?

R: An incredibly twisted oak tree you can see from my grandmother's terrace, with a branch that flows toward the ground. I have deconstructed it so much that it's no longer recognizable, but it's still there: it's my starting shape. When I start a canvas, I trace it; I know a tree is coming, and I compose around it with rounds, squares, and textured circles that end up looking like stones. There is also a bird that became two simple interlocking triangles, the body and the wing. I always start from something real to arrive at something that appears abstract: the real is my anchor point, and deconstructing it is my way of truly making it my own.

Do you prefer that we read your signs or that we feel them?

R: Both work for me, and that is precisely what I like. Some see a totally abstract image, others guess a mountain, a sun, a horizon line. They are very concrete shapes for me, but open enough for everyone to project their own reading onto them. I leave the interpretation open.

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What does it change to work for clothing?

R: I trusted the team 100% to guide me. I focused on my paintings and my images, as best I could, and I left them the whole "how it lives on a tee, a sweater, a sweatshirt" part. It’s their job; they know how to visualize and see what will work. It freed me up: I painted, they translated.

Any favorite piece in the collection?

R: Two, actually, the two wool sweaters, obviously. The first (Pinhal Sweater), the one I wore for the window display in Paris, is truly my colors and my tree shapes, well-reinterpreted: it looks like me. The second (Superbloom Sweater) plays on other shades—blue, violet, brown, beige... it's the abstract zoom of a mountain painting made on-site. They went looking for the detail in the color patches, and the result is superb. There's also the small cardigan, with its large horizon line and its very small house, an image I've been tracing for a long time as a flash tattoo. "My little house lost in the middle of nowhere": immediately, you understand the idea of escape, that step to the side that is at the heart of the collection.

Superbloom Multicolor Sweater

The Komorebi and the Super Bloom were born during the residency.

R: Two images that Valentin had spotted, very beautiful photos that spoke exactly to the spirit of the collection. He suggested I reinterpret them in painting. I never start from a photo, usually, so I tried it and I loved it. We sat down with canvases, I painted these two pieces, he loved them. That's all I like: getting out of your comfort zone and testing things. This side that's a bit punk, a bit makeshift—Olow has kept it for twenty years, it's precious, and it gives artists real freedom to express themselves.

And what’s next?

R: Full painting: I'm preparing a duo show with my artist friend Yakès for November. I also did a lot of murals this spring and summer, outdoor painting is a real pleasure. And still a bit of tattooing here and there. We are constantly looking to evolve, never to stagnate, and that suits me well right now.

Interview by Damien Gillet

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Photos: Nina Ducleux