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A New Zealander since 1991, French born Olivier
Duhamel lives on Waiheke Island with his wife Marie-France and their 3
children.
The young Duhamel leaves France before his
20th birthday for extensive travels in Europe, in Africa and in the
South Pacific. He arrives in New Zealand with his wife in 1986 and
leads a successful 15 years career as a software engineer until 2002
at which times he resumes his artistic pursuits.
A self taught hobbyist and long time
recreational draughtsman Mr. Duhamel has been a student of Chrystèle
Legardinier (etching on copper plates – 1985) and of David Reid
(sculptor and founder -2006). He has been a member of the Catherine
Mitchell Life Drawing group since 2004.
His principal inspiration is
the female nude
which he depicts using graphite pencil on paper with great attention
to details. Since 2006, Olivier Duhamel also makes small
figurative
bronze sculptures. The rapid success of these classical and elegant
figurines convinces him to become a full time sculptor.
Like few other sculptors, Olivier Duhamel
casts his bronze himself in his Waiheke workshop. This allows him to
keep full control over the entire creative process. He prides himself
on the quality of his castings. More recently, he has been working
with Waiheke sculptor and founder, Oliver Stretton-Pow.
Loyal to his inspiration of the human form
figurative expression, Olivier also makes amazingly detailed and
realistic custom life castings. He is the author of the popular "boobs
casting manual", a guide explaining in easy to follow instructions
everything one needs to know to make a plaster sculpture of someone
chest.
His studio and
workshop is open to visitors by appointment or by contacting one
of
Waiheke Island tour operators.
Olivier Duhamel’ s
creations do not convey any particular message, do not attempt any
conceptual or symbolist exploration, nor do they search to be
innovative at all cost. They are rather trying to simply capture the
beauty and sensuality of his subjects.
His bronze works are sold in galleries across New Zealand and in
Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Paris, Marseilles, Nantes, Bruxelles and
Shangai.
Read more... Born
in France near the Belgium border in 1957. Dad was an officer in the
merchant navy and Mum was very pretty, she still is. One younger
brother Benoit, one younger sister, Laurence.
Secondary education in a variety of catholic private
boarding schools of unequal repute. (College Notre dame de
Valenciennes, College de Juilly, College Sainte-Marie de Meaux,
College Join Lambert de Rouen.)
Trip to Greece, I particularly like Crete, specially
the south west coast.
At that time, horse riding is my passion.
Baccalaureate, Scientific Section obtained in 1977
in Rouen, France. (The Baccalaureate is an important certificate
marking the end of secondary education.)
Trip to Portugal.
Never set foot at the faculty of biology where I was
enrolled. Instead I practice sky diving. Free falling is kind of
crazy.
I then made several trip to western and central
Africa, driving old second hand Peugeot's 404 to resell with a profit.
During these years I visited Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria,
Cameroon, Zaire, Chad, Togo (where I got really sick and would
probably have died without the help of my friends. Thanks buddies!!) ,
Mali, Burkina Faso. Nigeria was by far the most fascinating country
and where I made the most money.
Returning to Paris I enroll in a school of computer
programming for 6 months and immediately find a very lucrative job in
the Sentier area of central Paris. EPSI is a French private
engineering school. http://www.epsi.fr
Other trips to Africa will soon follow because at 25
years of age, office life is kind of unbearable.
Also took several small jobs such as building
swimming pools in the French Riviera with Herve, handling concrete by
the ton... a very cool job, I had well defined muscles and a great
tan.... ... I meet the daughter of a client, a very beautiful woman of
7 years my senior who taught me the ancient craft of etching on copper
plates and many other tricks.
Etching was not bringing in any money and I became a
courier in Paris for a few months. I was very good at it and took
pride of my cunning driving and astute itineraries.
Returning to Paris penniless after some failed
adventure down south, I meet a very sexy girl from Bordeaux. She
offers me accommodation in her Menilmontant flat. We have a truly
great time. Her name is Marie-France
I wanted to surprise her and bought two tickets for
Sydney.
We spend a few months in New Caledonia at the time
when the island was in a state of civil war. We then left for Tahiti
where we stayed a couple of years. We had the bed in front of the
front door which was always open so we could watch the sunrise from
our pillows. Early in the morning I would go fishing in the lagoon and
get back home to wake her up and make some fresh coffee that she would
finally drink sitting on my knees, naked, warm and soft like a toffee
caramel... We were young, beautiful and free, living the good life in
the tropics, far, so far from the grey Paris, the cold rain and the
never ending winters of northern Europe. I worked as a programmer for
a small bureau called IMAG. Clients included Oscar Temaru's Faaa
mayoralty, The South Pacific Experimentation Center (a facility to
test nuclear weapons) and Robert Wan's budding empire, Tahiti Pearl.
Birth of our first daughter, Nina.
We got married in Baneuil in 1985 (Dordogne, France)
in the family home, for the worst and for the best and for ever. We
return to Noumea an apply for a New Zealand permit. Our strategy was
to use our NZ resident permit as a stepping board to live in
Australia.
I find a Job in New Zealand for Sofrana Shipping. I
was their Auckland IT Manager from 1987 to 1990. This was my first
position in New Zealand. I was responsible for the redevelopment of
all the information systems and also had day-to-day responsibility of
running the IT department, reporting to Head Office in Nouméa, New
Caledonia.
With the birth of our second child (Timothée) and
third (Margo) we settle and become suburban house makers. Finished
with travels and adventures. We work like crazy to make the dough, pay
the mortgage and feed the family.
I quit Sofrana's poor salary and work as a Contract
Developer, mainly for IBM New Zealand Ltd until 1998. Most notable
assignments included: • ICMS Project– ( Integrated Customer Management
System ) Analyst Programmer, RPG • National Fault Project Team lead
for the Network Testing System – Unix, Oracle, C++ Development manager
for Network Activation System – Unix, Sybase, C++
The money rolls in. We buy a nice house in a leafy
suburb, become members of the local yacht club, buy budgies, cats and
a fat shares portfolio, business class travels, skiing holidays, a
circle of select friends of good education, their trophy wives driving
red sport cars complete with fancy little doggy, are into charities or
into swinging or both.
In December 1997 I joined Binary Research as
Development Manager to help this young company to implement its
expansion plans, leading a small group of 10 software engineers.
Symantec, an US software company, acquired the company in July 1998. I
was subsequently offered a similar role at Symantec and given the
challenge of demonstrating that efficient and cost effective software
development was possible from New Zealand.
From July 1998 to September 2003 I work for Symantec
NZ Ltd, Auckland with the bombastic title of Senior Director, Research
and Development, holding responsibilities for the development of the
Symantec Ghost product line, leading a team of up to 47 engineers and
technicians. Based in Auckland and reporting to head office in
California, this senior leadership position carried overall
responsibilities of the Development, Quality Assurance, Project
management, budget, technology acquisition and partnership as well as
licensing agreement negotiation for the product line. My influence
included the creation of strategic direction and the establishment of
long-term technology plans. I was very well paid. During the week ends
we went to shopping malls to buy loads of "stuff" to fill, first our
house, then our garage. Then we needed to extend the house to store
all of that "stuff" of ours. The role at Symantec also included
general management responsibilities for the direction of the Auckland
site (60 employees) During my tenure at the head of the product group,
the team grew from 10 employees in 1998 to over 45 permanent and
contract staff in 2003 and the product revenue grew 10 folds, becoming
the market leader in its category.
In September 2003, I eventually got fired from this
lucrative job and Marie-France encouraged me to become an artist.
Since then I draw nude ladies and I am loving it. We
live on Waiheke island in the company of a few other privileged souls.
On August 25 2006, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. I am
also Making bronze casting and custom body castings
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