Oil on canvas
24″ x 48″
$400

Artist Statement

“I’m a traveler at heart. I grew up in New Zealand and my love for painting
started here. After school I studied architecture, then visited Sydney,
Australia for a music festival and stayed. Off the plane and saw a cloud
of fruit bats flying and knew it was where I should be. A few years
later I got a visa for America and lived in California, Utah and
Arizona. Living in different places is freedom. Being in the desert in
Arizona was unreal, a cowboy town where people line dance in bars and
shoot guns in the desert. They lived a totally different way and I
learnt there are so many different ways to be.
My drawings became
more weird and surreal, drawing from my subconscious. This feeling of
freedom has stayed with me and shows in my paintings – open space for
the viewer to experience whatever they feel.

I moved to Canada in
2014. I lived in several cities around Vancouver, and now live in
Greater Vancouver with my husband and our two beautiful girls.
Being
with my family in this place, I’ve found an inner calm to make art from.
Painting helps bring focus to the present moment by relaxing and
letting things flow.

My art evolved with my experiences, emotions and dreams, through to a feeling of freedom and peace.
I hope to inspire the viewer in whatever way they feel.”

Artist Bio

Olivia
Harks is an oil painter who creates surreal interpretations of human
emotion. Olivia was born in Toronto in 1988 and grew up in New Zealand.
She lived in Sydney, Australia and then America before she returned to
Canada. This travel inspired a feeling of freedom and weightlessness
which shows in her art. In the global world we live in, cultural
barriers are lifted, and making connections is about who you are not
where you live. Works incorporate vivid female figures in flowing,
floating and suspended motions. Using selective colours in layers of
glazing with black and white undertones, she carves light and depth into
each piece using her signature chiaroscuro style. Olivia brings deeper
layers of consciousness into her art, and her dark style comes from
this. She now lives in greater Vancouver with her husband and two
daughters.

Find Olivia online at:

Website: http://www.oliviaharks.com
Instagram: @oliviaharksart
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/oliviaharksart