Biography
Olivier Desmet (b. 1973, Belgium) is a San Francisco-based photographer. His contemplative black & white images have been published in the Financial Times, Metropolis Japan, Tokyo Weekender Magazine, and the acclaimed literary quarterly The Southern Review. Olivier has released three monographs, including “Marine Layer” (Amenti Press, 2023), a collection of meditative photographs of nature and architecture in the San Francisco Bay area. He practices platinum-palladium printing, a traditional wet-chemistry process that yields prints with a beautiful tonal range.

Artist Statement
I hope to convey the notion of Mono no Aware - the Japanese concept of beauty found in the transience of things - through my photography. My work explores transience, the passage of time, and the idea of stillness as a precursor to the aesthetic experience. It considers the interplay between these concepts and their significance in shaping our perceptual experiences.