Artist Bio

Olga Evenden is a multi-disciplinary artist from Dublin, Ireland. Her formal training consists of Third Level Art and Design Practice, and BA honours degree in Visual Communications, from TU Dublin, formerly Dublin Institute Technology. Since graduating from DIT in 2000, Olga has worked as a graphic designer and educator, teaching a variety of art and design-related subjects in CDETB. Olga is also an illustrator and abstract painter working mostly with acrylic paint and digital tools.

 

Artist Statement

 

I create bold expressive non-figurative paintings using acrylic paint, which seek to resolve the conflict between my formal training in Graphic Design, a late diagnosis of ADHD and my desire to create raw painterly compositions. Organising and creating systems has always been a dominant, and at times overwhelming feature of my day to day life. To function effectively in the world, I am forced to adhere to a rigid set of “rules”, which can often feel restrictive and controlled. Whether this is a natural inherent part of my personality or a coping mechanism from years of undiagnosed ADHD, I do not know. It was however exasperated, by my formal training in Graphic Design, which is also defined by organisation systems too. In response to these things, I find myself seeking to create loose, informal, irregular solutions, to my compositions. My motivation is to create a sense of vague haphazard disorder. 

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Kandinsky and in particular the women of the post-World War II New York School have always been my fascination. Like these artists, I explore how each of the elements within my compositions bring individual meaning to the whole. I am fascinated with how colour is an object in itself and how the unity and harmony within a work changes, depending on how the colour and marks within the piece relate to each other. My intention is to arrive at a place where I feel there is a cohesive unity between the colour, texture, lines and the marks I make. This is a cathartic experience which soothes my anxiety and liberates the constraints imposed on my soul.

 

My work evolves through a series of sittings. Initially, I lay down a whimsical ground that is intuitive and not planned. I focus on composition and pay sparse attention to palette, creating problems and disturbances in balance, which I set myself the challenge of resolving. I then move to a more considered phase, where I begin to piece together, rearrange, and alter the visual elements which I have made. Similar to the puzzle-like structures which sometimes feature in my work, the final result is a sort of ‘fitting’ together of the hastily applied background with a more defined, detail-oriented foreground.