Lovie Olivia has been showing work in Houston, Texas since high school, when she exhibited her first full body of paintings and sculptures. She attended the High School for Performing and Visual Arts, Houston Community College, under Michael Golden, followed by years of strategic independent study.
Lovie uses her many interest in, cultures, music, literature and history to inspire her works. She’s fascinated by phenomena, coincidental and collateral interactions of societies. She has recently exhibited at The Community Artist Collective (CAC), Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), Arthello Beck Gallery in Dallas, Project Row Houses and most recently, Space 125 Gallery.
Lovie Olivia will be participating in 2009 spring round of ‘Slide Jam’ at the Contemporary Arts Museum. She is also in studio preparing for her 2009 Solo show titled ‘ Thrice Removed’ where she is using paintings, mixed-media and installation to explore family lineage, genealogy, sexual and racial identity.
Artist Statement
Like empathy for the subject of a significant song, the subjects in my works demand similar attention. I paint and draw on panel, canvas and paper to make visual inquiries of identity, not limited to race and gender. My works are a blend of self-explorations and personal observations as an African American Woman. What I experience, what I witness and what I desire, is communicated through a collection of figure and symbol, materials and subjects.
I feel compelled to have a non verbal conversation with my audience with intention to connect and draw from our various stored memories. I am interested in the symbiotic relationship between humans and animals, animate and inanimate things, and races and cultures. My love for history, anthropology, music, and literature, are constant influences. It is my belief that Hip Hop has changed the way the world communicates. This poetic communication can be absorbed by artists like myself and given a visual interpretation with all the same metaphorical symbolisms.
The process of execution is equally as significant as the final concept. Before any painting begins, I spend time in development with improvisational movement and mark making that is significant to the final product. In essence, this beginning process is where the abstract is expressed and I am free of the technical. The consecution of revealing and concealing is life affirming and allows the work to have an archeological feel. This dialogue between deconstruction and embellishment is vital to the desired visual aesthetic.
