Olivia Stowe
​​Art is a way to find daily appreciation of life.
I showcase this through painting, illustration,
printmaking, writting &
digital design.
​
​​​
Contact Information:​
Email: stoweolivia@gmail.com
Substack: https://substack.com/@oliviasobservations
Instagram: @olivias.observations
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/oliviastowe
My Portfolio
Portobello mushrooms are not to be confused with little gnomes wreaking havoc in your garden. Portobello mushrooms are soft and sponge-like. Gnomes are living and clay to the touch. Portfolio sounds like Portobello. One is a collection of my favorites. The others is a great additive to Italian dishes. Neither is a small creature running in my yard.​
Enjoy My Makings
​​Lillies and Sillies and all little frilly things. Reds and Blue and hues of Green. Reds of crimson. Blues sung by B.B. King. My paintings use wild patterns and loud colors to bring abstraction to life. Throughout my young art career, I have found fascination in the vivid imagery and whimsy, particularly in painters such as Van Gough, Mit Kobayashi, and Matthew Wong. While exploring my artistic interests, I have found a draw to the patterned paintings. My earliest works consist of illustrations made with little hatch marks. When I transferred into painting, I continued using these methods of short fast marks. Using the rounded tip brush, I explore these fast continuous motions. My brush strokes ripple the canvas similarly to a fly landing on a lily pond. A lily pond rippled with the faces of others. I have always loved working with art that surrounds the figures of others. Art that reminds viewers of the simplicity of human beauty. In my blue piece named, “Little People Looking to You,” I showcase a small family portrait rippled in blue quick marks and yellow and orange highlights. My color choice of blue variations brings the viewers into the piece while the noisy warm tones light up the kids.
Little People Looking at You, 2023
Acrylic on Canvas
How to draw people
Sara is a five foot five blonde woman with a soft build and an elegant glow. Start with her nose. Press both your thumbs into her nostrils while you drag your pointer fingers around the creaks of her nose. Smudge the tip. Follow her lines up the bridge while simultaneously rubbing your palms into the caves of her eyelids. Rest before gently circling the balls of her eyes. This task must be done simultaneously on each side to avoid unevenness or carelessness. The eyebrows, which possess a prickly texture, give your hands a curious sensation. Their equivalence requires less precision. An idea that is relevant for all bodily hair. The ears lie equilaterally just below the eyes on both sides. You cup them with your palms instead of pressing into them. Their details are less interesting and will ultimately distract from the important message of the drawing. Her body follows next, but your hands are too small to use as a tool. You now use your entire upper body, making the process feel more sexual than it really is. Yes, you are copulating, Although not through sex, but through eros. The love of creating, erotic. The shoulders and the waist can be broken into triangles while circles lie hidden in unsuspecting
currents – i.e. the shoulders, the upper left chest just above the breast, the side hip. This adds
geometry into the equation alluring math types to participate in the act. The lengths of her arms
match those of her legs, but the triangle of her hips is wider than that of her shoulders, her clavicle
bone. Triangles are used as a cheat sheet to understand if your body was really the correct tool
instead of your hands. Trial and error. Shading can be added throughout by rubbing and
scratching.
The secret to drawing is the light touch. Just like with cooking, start with a small amount of
seasoning, you can always add more later. Pressing down too hard with your instrument can
scar the paper making erasing unfeasible. Too much too soon. This is why many art pieces can take on another life, living for years while still in the womb. Speed is not the goal, but instead touch is.
​An Egg Epidemic
Janis’ planet was a bubble gum pink-crusted donut with a soft ground and sprinkled skies. It dwelled in the inner part of her seven dimension universe on the left bottom corner. Her universe had a shape, not infinite. It was a square. To clarify her definition of a square may be different than yours. Because what really is a square? Who decided that. In Janis’ universe, a square has three rounded corners and always speaks to you if you get too close it’s edge. Squares are scientific. But I am digressing, back to Janis. Round and short. Beige. Janis is what Americans perceive to be a talking egg. Her best friend’s name is Becky, also an egg-like creature, but taller. The two of them travel throughout the universe, jumping from asteroid to lightbulbs, eating onions, and sharing laughs. Janis was my initial introduction to storytelling, my first illustrated short story, created when I was nine. Janis lived on the back of blue and black lined paper and traveled in and out of my sewn patched JanSport backpack. Before inevitably falling victim to the end-life of paper - Water. This is my origin story to storytelling, to art really.
Enter today, Thursday, February 27th. The post-apocalyptic-special-space that conceals a child-like Oli in an adult Olivia. The time after the birth of the creative, to live in the present day, a seemingly egg-less adulthood. Or is it? Again, reality is in the eye of the beholder, and just as the ‘square’ lacks a clear definition, so can the ‘egg.’ With the never-ending bird flu increasing ‘egg’ prices further concerning the consumer, I have decided to expand my vision. It feels as though the ‘egg idea’ has become limited to the privileged. Eggs - mine looked like yogurt today. Yesterday, their appearance morphed into a cream filling between two chalky brown cakes. The beautification of social definitions. Sometimes, ‘eggs’ are not what I, you, she, expect, but nevertheless we can appreciate that sometimes all we have control over is definitions and how we use them. My blend on perspective taking.
BLOBS IN LOVE
Subcontext
To which and why were we created is not the prose of this piece, I am just stating how we are. The ‘human created’ evolution. She/her, he, I. What are they? The components that make up human beings can be broken down by subcontext. The grit beneath the dirt.
​
First, gas - The closest that I can get to a blank slate of existence is air. Not fully a negative space because it's made of gas, but the idea lies before you. To be human is to be encompassed by this, similar to swedish fish in Jell-O.
​
Second, biology - the physical bonding mechanisms that touch you to she. Him to it. Trees to bugs. Biology grounds an influence on emotional touches of the world to itself. Health and sickness as a baseline factor for all interactions. Sickness as a perfumatory form of the noun. Health as just a noun. Personified they both are two Franklins wearing different directions of the same hat. In the way that sometimes, it can change so quickly. Health changes into sickness as fast as it takes Franklin to move his hat. Not always true, but always omnipresent. Health as fragility. Sickness as impending.
​
Third, they - Interactions that formulate every perspective. 'They' are everyone. Grammatically challenged, but nonetheless the most important. Every idea, humor,
​
Subcontext is environment, various forms of the same but different. No idea is fully self created because all use prior building blocks i.e. environment, influence, language. We are just a mix of all the ‘theys’. Except, the ‘theys’ that I am mixed with are different from your’s. Mine are mixed from the man on the corner stoop to my sixth grade English teacher. Your’s could be a hodgepodge of religious fanatics and the girl that gave you lice. Originality - what is that?
A small idea about identity: subcontext is identity.
