olivier roller, born in 1971, in strasbourg studied law and politicals sciences. Actualy living in paris. his first pictures were published in the journal Limelight, than in the newspapers Libération, Le Monde, Télérama. very soon the portrait became essential. portraits of the world in halftone , portraits of regards, rinkles, lowered foreheads, faces by hundred, ordered for a page, but at the same time, for a personal series. his friends, his mother, nobody, ...the subject is not important. only the look layeed on it is important.   "with a camera in his hands, he always look as though he is carryng a burden. he is not at all like the others who say "i am born with it", "it is natural", "Ihave it me"... he had nothing in his blood, he is not born with it, it is all the contrari: he encounted photography, by chance, he groped arround, he took his time, a big love, needs to tame. it is not about obsession, but passion. nothing is natural, for him: each photos is an effort, a huge energy, a work that leaves him empty and disconcert. he put it in his head to make the images speak. it has got to be admitted:sometimes oliver roller 's pictures are so chaty that we can not hear ourselves. he puts himself wonderfully into question. no matter what work subject to this mecanisme of doubt take a great value. he asks himself if he will find the courage to put the all of him in his pictures how much can he go into danger. he asks himself why is it necessary to fix. he says to himself that, maybe, is he fixed and everything else is spinning around. he tries therefore to fix with is camera to feel less lonely. sometime olivier roller is asking if he is not writting the same story behind his pictures. it is beautiffully formulated, it would mean that the image is also a book, and there are thousands of ways to writte a book. oliver roller has been writing the same story for years. we write the same story with words, images, silences, or otherthings. the "true" artists, and not those of pour quality, have decided to never renounce to this story and explore it untill the end. they do not try to change it to invent another story. they obey to it, to find all the secrets of it. when oliver roller is taking photographies of someone is discouvring one more chapter. but it is always the same story, always the same regards put into the box this trembling hesitation of the frame. always. We would like to say to him, to olivier roller to never stop photographie otherwise it could feel alone."     clara dupont-monod texte published in polystyrène, 2001.