Pedro Oliver

PEDRO OLIVER (Palma de Mallorca, 1968).
“Mickey Mouse,” 1997.
Acrylic on canvas.
Signed, titled, dated, and located in Barcelona on the reverse.
Measurements: 150 x 150 cm.

“Mickey Mouse” belongs to a particularly recognizable phase in Pedro Oliver’s oeuvre, during which the artist drew on images from comics and popular culture, subjecting them to a process of reduction and synthesis. During these years, he created paintings featuring extremely simple silhouettes, including figures that explicitly reference Mickey Mouse.

In this work, the character is reduced to his most basic features: a large white silhouette emerging against a dark background crisscrossed by strokes, splotches, drips, and lines reminiscent of graffiti. The recognizable image thus ceases to function solely as a reference to the Disney character and becomes an icon, set against a gestural and seemingly chaotic pictorial field. This tension between popular imagery, urban language, and abstraction is characteristic of Oliver, whose painting in recent years has been associated with a sensibility close to pop art, graffiti, and visual poetry.

Pedro Oliver holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Barcelona and has developed a multidisciplinary practice encompassing painting, printmaking, video, installation, and performance. He has lived and worked in Mallorca, Barcelona, Galicia, and New York, and has founded collective projects such as La Lavandería Fundació, Por Amor à Arte, and Telenoika. The year 1997 was particularly active in his career: he presented solo exhibitions at the Ad Hoc Gallery in Vigo, Por Amor à Arte in Porto, and the Árvore Gallery, and participated in ARCO, FIAC, Art Chicago, and the Vila Nova de Cerveira International Art Biennial, among others.