About the Artist
Original Art
I’m Olivia, the artist behind OLUVYA ART, and I paint because I genuinely love it.
I didn’t start out with some grand plan to become an artist. I was actually encouraged to try art after my ADHD & autism diagnoses. At a time when my mind could feel incredibly busy and overwhelming, painting helped me slow down, focus, be present.
Then I realised I was actually good at it & enjoyed it?
And if I know anything, it’s that when you find something you can enjoy AND be good at, you RUN with it.
So I did.
What started as a way to quiet my mind became something I completely fell in love with. The more I painted, the more I wanted to learn, experiment and find out what I was capable of creating. Somewhere along the way, art stopped being just something that helped me switch off and became one of the biggest ways I express myself.
I don’t really like putting myself into one wee box. I work across acrylic, sometimes watercolour & most recently oil, which i adore. My subject matter changes too; I love painting people and portraits, but I’m equally happy painting landscapes, animals, something abstract or whatever else has caught my attention.
Basically, if I look at something & think, I want to paint that, I’ll probably have a go.
What connects a lot of my work isn’t necessarily the medium or subject, but the things I find myself drawn to: people, emotion, identity, self-love, finding yourself and the beauty in the world around us.
And sometimes there isn’t a deeper meaning at all. Sometimes I paint something simply because I think it’s beautiful.
For me, art has gone from being a way to quiet my thoughts to becoming something I want to build my life around.
I want my paintings to end up in people’s homes. I want someone to see one of my pieces and feel something. I want people to love my work, talk about it, remember it and, eventually, recognise my name.
Olivia Jackson
I have big ambitions for OLUVYA ART.
And there is a story behind the name -
One of my friends used to say my name, Olivia, and tell me it sounded like she was saying “I love you or I love ya.” and I LOVED that, it always made me smile.
So when it came to naming my art, instead of Olivia’s Art, it became OLUVYA ART.
It still sounds like my name, but it also sounds a little like “I love ya/your art.”
So technically, every time you say OLUVYA ART, I’m already planting the idea that you love my work and a little accidental psychology never hurt anyone...
But beyond the name, I genuinely believe we’re heading into a new renaissance of creativity. In a world where so much can now be produced instantly, I think there’s something increasingly special about things made by people; things with emotion, friction, imperfections, stories and a real person behind them & I would like to be a part of that.
Painting began as something that helped me quiet my internal world & it’s becoming one of the ways I want to make myself heard in the external one.
I ’m still at the beginning of this journey. I’m still experimenting, learning & discovering what kind of artist I’m going to become.
But I know I have something to say.
And I intend to make sure people see it.
Curator