Born in Normandy, after studying fine art at Cherbourg, Ortaire settled in Brittany, where he lives near the sea. Ortaire uses intense pigments to create his unique painted fish before suspending them in paraffin and covering them with a transparent resin. Genuine sardine tins (manufactured in his local area) are used to create an interesting dynamic between the industrial, mass-produced, everyday object and his hand-painted, unique and often humorous representations of the fish. Using his unusual technique, Ortaire aims to surprise and delight us with this unexpected marriage of the commercial with the artisan. In 2008 Ortaire exhibited at the Royal Academy in London and now has galleries showing his work in France, Holland, the UK and Switzerland.