Revolve Gallery

Olivia Pilling 

The bright colours and tones are the first thing that hits you with Olivia’s paintings. They convey a sense of excitement, playfulness and immediacy.

“The colour in my paintings is already there in the subject matter. I heighten and accentuate the hues and therefore enhance the observer’s experience of my paintings. The use of colour goes hand in hand with how I handle the paint. It is lively, free and loose.”

The artist paints what she sees; from local scenes from the valleys in the Pennines where she is based, to other cities such as Manchester, and sights both in the UK and abroad. Living in the hills in the small town of Todmorden, Lancashire, Olivia has put her use of colour down to an immediate response to the dark smoke stained brick work, deep dark valleys, abandoned mills and towering chimneys of the landscape. 

Background

After studying her Art foundation course at Blackburn College, a place she has now returned to to take up a part-time teaching position for degree level printmaking, Olivia went on to do a BA Hons Fine Art degree at Nottingham Trent University. During this time she exhibited her work in the Midlands, London and the North West. Olivia sells work both nationally and internationally and is quickly gaining a reputation as a growing talent in the North West.

Inspiration

Olivia’s work has been likened to that of the German Expressionists and the Fauvist period. Like the Fauvist painters, Olivia isn’t afraid to use colour to transform a simple subject into something stimulating and vibrant. The works of Derain, Vlaminck, Roualt, Nolde and Matisse, as well British painters such as Bomberg and Sickert are strong influences. Russian folk art is a big inspiration to the artist due to the use of black and how it is used to encapsulate and harness the vividness of colour.

Olivia’s paintings are both an expression and an impression of the subject itself. Each brushstroke is an impulse or response created from the brushstroke that has gone before it. The paint is seen as a substance, acknowledging its properties, and not just as a medium for translating ideas on to paper.

“I think it gives the observer a sense and insight of the labour and excitement which have gone into the painting.”

To canvas

Rather that starting with a sketch of the subject, Olivia’s paintings evolve from lines and dots mapping out a rough composition of the image. Once the rough image is mapped out, immediacy is the key to Olivia’s painting. The image is subsequently drawn with the paint itself, building up a series of layers. If the image is over worked, it is started again. The process is raw, organic. Working in acrylics, the paint dries quite quickly so allows for the layers to be added.

“I try to avoid pondering over colour combinations or using meticulous processes; they can sometimes hinder creativity and make me more critical of my own work”

On many of the larger canvases there may be marks or splashes that have happened accidently but this is seen as part of the process and evidence of the paint itself.

The elements of bright colours, dark contrasts, shadowy subject matter and loose technique come together to provide an end result of an image that rides a fine line between spontaneity, calculation and control.