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 demonstrates a conflict between my natural inclination towards a graphic style and my desire to create raw painterly compositions. I am interested in how each of the elements within my compositions, brings 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 there is a cohesive unity between the colour, texture, lines, and the marks I make. I am guided by intuition and explore feelings and emotions to create works that are a visual representation of my internal experience.

 

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.