Today we’d like to introduce you to Olivia Jane
Hi Olivia, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
This art story has been and continues to be such a journey! There are some notable things that I would like to share about this journey with you. I was always an artistically inclined kid who preferred to spend a lot of time alone, lost in my own little world. While I loved art and could get swept up in it for most of the day, my skills were not more notable than anyone else, teachers did not encourage me towards it. I struggled immensely in school, I was perpetually daydreaming and never really present for most of it. I was 15 years old before I finally read a book. When I was 16, I encountered my first oil painting class and I fell in love with the materials. Again, I wasn’t a good painter and it was clear that many others in my class were more naturally gifted than I was. But I loved going to the studio after hours and working late nights. I loved the environment of being in the studio with the music blasting and the light smell of solvents. My first painting professor in college told me not to pursue painting, to not pursue art at all actually, and then he refused to be my advisor. I did anyway. It wasn’t until after school, after some rough and crazy experiences in those early years of being a young adult spat out into the world, that I realized I needed to paint. After spending one year backpacking and hitchhiking at age 22, primarily in South East Asia, I realized that inspiration and awe for the world was overflowing, and the best way for me to express myself was returning to the brush. So in 2015 I sought out the only oil painter I knew, Jack Shure, a Boulder Colorado based artist and dear old friend of mine. Jack taught me how to use my materials. To think I was already 8 years into my relationship with oil paint and none of these “teachers” had ever really taught me how to paint, how to properly use the materials at hand. Maybe, I was also finally ready for things to click on a new level. So my art career has really evolved from that point. The last 9 years I have been really dedicated to living an artful life, in and out of the studio.
Just in the last 5 years I have had 6 different studios across 3 different states. This journey for me has been a wild ride. I’ve arrived so many times at the crossroads where I choose art over and over again. This has often meant having to keep moving, having to leave something good in the hopes of something more, selling all my possessions, starting over in a new place, reinventing myself, deep diving to develop the skills and keep believing in the work even when the world is on fire. It’s been a journey of finding community in all of the places I’ve lived and weaving a tapestry of kinship and peers that extends around the world. Being an artist is to be brave, it’s having the courage to say yes to what life wants of us, instead of securing ourselves to what we think life should look like. It is problem solving on the fly, it is to make the revolution irresistible, it is to affect the collective culture.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There have been so many challenges and struggles along the way, it would be devastating to even revisit half of them! But I truly believe that every time someone told me not to do what I wanted to do, every time I’ve been shut down, it has added logs to the flame of my passion for this work. The rejections will come, it’s what you do with these rejections that matters. Nobody truly wins if you give up on your art. I think it helps to see this work as a long game, as life long work. It may not always be my only job, but none of this detracts from being an artist in the world and at heart. It helps to be really flexible minded about what this can look like. I think it is also important to acknowledge that this art game works differently for each and every person I know. We all have to carve our own way, this can be frustrating and it’s so tempting to just want to replicate what seems to work for others, but do not be discouraged if this hasn’t been working for you.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I recently came up with a phrase to describe my work: “Contemporary Art for the Old Gods,” and this probably seems like a wild claim. But my work feels inextricably tied to something both modern and ancient. I have always been obsessed with cave paintings and the hybrid creatures that are depicted in many of these paintings. Another word for these spirits or deities is Therianthropic figures, they are supernatural beings. That these figures are present as some of the earliest art forms tells me this: As soon as humans had enough shelter, food, and community, they made art. This feels like a quintessential aspect of our humanness and our human story. Were they depicting a shaman-like figure from their communities? A transformational experience / psychedelic experience? Were they attempting to put a face to “God”? Were they simply experimenting artistically, adding features from various animals together to make a unique blend. In either case, the summation of all these answers is the reason I paint. It is in my bones, a story older than time.
The aspect of my work that is speaking to contemporary issues is my use of taboo imagery. I celebrate the feminine form, often nude. As long as I hear people sexualizing *especially feminine bodies, just for being nude, I will continue to do this work because it is still needed. I believe that violence against women is deeply tied to this over sexualization and entitled behavior over our bodies. We must reclaim our bodies and remember a time, many times actually throughout human history when nude bodies were celebrated in art. How could we have digressed so far in 2024? And how is this impacting society at large? I also utilize many death motifs in my work. Contrary to the obvious first glance of my work, this is actually an urgent call and reverence for living. Much of the western world has been cut off from their roots, forced to forget their traditions, rights of passage, initiations, grief rituals and how to show up in community. We yearn for these things. I believe that by honoring death, by learning how to grieve, we can imbue life with so much more vibrance, so much more depth and reverence for the time that we have here, and in doing so, inspires us into creation, into action.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I believe that staying connected to my WHY is so important, and critical for any artist. It is the driving force behind showing up for the work even when you don’t want to, when you aren’t in the mood. My WHY could change, although I feel like ultimately the primal driving force of my work hasn’t shifted, I’ve just gotten better at describing what it is about. But my WHY could change and that would be totally fine, as long as I am connected to why I am doing this work and how does this work contribute to collective liberation, then I can muster the energy to show up and give it my all.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.oliviajaneart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oliviajaneart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oliviajaneart/
