OLYMPE RACANA-WEILER

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Sep 6

Contemporary Artist | Painting | Sculpture | Printmaking

Olympe in her Montrueil studio 2025 © tk

Olympe’s practice is rooted in an intensely physical approach to painting. Her richly layered compositions move between abstraction and figuration, bringing together color, gesture, texture, and recurring forms in works that develop through a process of accumulation and transformation. Her background in dance has been an important influence, giving her a heightened sensitivity to space, light, and movement. The gesture of the body becomes integral to the act of painting, lending her work a sense of rhythm, spontaneity, and continual motion. Her approach to painting is also deeply informed by her engagement with traditional printmaking and artisanal techniques. Olympe first trained in lithography at Michael Woolworth’s studio, specializing in etching. After training alongside American artist Jim Dine, she spent several years developing her woodcut technique at the Steindruck Printing Studio in Austria, where she was mentored by master printers Christoph Chavanne and Gabi Pechmann. She also worked in ceramics at the Manufacture Nationale de S.vres and in bronze at the Blue Mountain Fine Art Foundry in the United States.

This commitment to craftsmanship has continued throughout her career. She has produced monumental woodcuts at Steindruck; engravings combining woodcut, silkscreen monotype, and carborundum at Gate 44 in Milan; and bronze sculpture at Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen in Switzerland. Her first artist’s book, L’Amour, was included in CHAGALL, MATISSE, MIR. – Made in Paris, an exhibition devoted to the traditionof the artist’s book at Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany.

Olympe Racana-Weiler (b. 1990) is a French-Argentine artist who lives in Paris and works in Montreuil. She graduated in 2014 with a degree in Visual Art and Art Theory from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Racana-Weiler’s richly layered paintings move between abstraction and figuration, driven by color, gesture, texture, and an intensely physical approach to making. Her background in dance informs this process, giving her a heightened sensitivity to space, light, and movement. Working across painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture, she combines traditional techniques with an experimental use of materials and surface.

Her work has been exhibited internationally throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. In 2018, she received both the Antoine Marin Prize and the Pierre Cardin Prize for Painting from the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Recent exhibitions include Journal at the GGL Foundation in Montpellier and a 2026 solo exhibition at La Fabrique, Centre d’Art, Montreuil.

Olympe’s Montrueil studio showing her large scale woodcut prints, 2025

**Olympe Racana-Weiler** | Hand, The White Tree, Your Face, 2026 |Mixed media on prepared linen canvas | 259 x 198 cm (102 x 78 in)

Olympe Racana-Weiler | Jardin d’Hiver, Profile, 2026 | Mixed media on prepared linen canvas |259 x 19 cm (102 x 78 in)

Racana-Weiler has exhibited internationally starting in 2013. In 2018, she received both the Antoine Marin Prize and the Pierre Cardin Prize for Painting from the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Solo exhibitions have included I Came Back from Paradise and I’m Frankly Hungry at Galerie Jérôme Pauchant; NEON DRIVING and Something About Silence at Galerie Éric Dupont in Paris; Behind the Eyes, her first solo exhibition in Asia, at Cuturi Gallery in Singapore; and Romance with a Bird at 21 Contemporary in Nice.

In 2021, art critic and curator Numa Hambursin invited Racana-Weiler to create her first permanent installation, Le Chant de la Sibylle, for the Hotel Richer de Belleval, home of the GGL Helenis Foundation in Montpellier. Extending her painting into the surrounding architecture, color and gesture unfold across the walls and ceiling of the first-floor boudoir. In 2023, art critic and curator Richard Leydier presented Journal, a solo exhibition at the GGL Foundation bringing together her paintings, engravings, and drawings.

Her recent activity includes a 2026 solo exhibition, curated by Evelyne Artaud and Bruno Bernard, at La Fabrique, Centre d’Art in Montreuil, as well as participation in the 2026 Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair at Powerhouse Arts in New York.

Racana-Weiler’s work is held in collections, foundations, museums, and universities across Europe, Asia, and the United States. Her work has been reviewed in ArtPress, Télérama, Artforum, Numero, and Le Journal du Dimanche.