Olivia Sterling
About
Born in Peterborough (1996) Olivia Sterling is a London based artist. Prior to the Royal College of Art she received her BA at The University of Derby.
Degree Details
Statement
My current body of work focuses on paintings of domestic scenes that mimic how I perceived living in Britain as a black person.
Lately, these paintings contained body parts, domestic objects, British desserts and creams interacting with one another to parallel certain modes of marginalisation and alienation. The paintings are often placed in the bathroom, kitchen or playground as they ranged from the private to public areas. I chose these as they were apt settings for moments of transformation of any kind - raw to cooked, dirty to clean, cool to burnt etc. which can parallel moments of othering.
I create scenes of hands gesturing amongst others, silently communicating, as well as playing with objects of cream, suspended in a web of letters denoting their skin colour. Often a white hand will be accompanied by ‘p’ for pink or peach interrupting the superiority that oozes from ‘white’, be reminding us of its true, sillier colour. My aim for the paintings are that they are a place where absurdity and normality collide.
A New Version of an Old Rhyme
The newest paintings depict the lives of Brownie Girl guides. I hope to capture the moment when a marginalised person begins to realise that they are the Other, entrenched with scenes common to the British experience in order to portray what it is like being a person of colour / black person in Britain. Brownies girls interest me as not only is it a difficult age (7-12) but the imagery connected to Girl Guides is extremely patriotic and full of English folk-tale imagery.
Ban Marie
Paintings on paper focused on the activities of girl guides.
1. Run - acrylic on paper 210 x 297mm
2. House - acrylic on paper 210 x 297mm
3. Hold - acrylic on paper 210 x 297mm
Colouring In
Colouring In is influenced by children’s colouring books fused with infographic imagery in order to further bring emphasis to marginalisation and the absurdity of discrimination. The paintings are often placed in the bathroom, kitchen or playground as they ranged from the private to public areas. I chose these as they were apt settings for moments of transformation of any kind - raw to cooked, dirty to clean, cool to burnt which can parallel moments of Othering. In terms of the narrative in the paintings, they play on ordinary and otherness as my reaction to seeing otherness as a fanciful normalised phenomena.
Double Cream
British desserts use cream to mellow spicy puddings, and in a similar vein we see beauty creams change the surface and the colour of skin and these paintings aim to make a parallel between these two instances. This series focuses on a white liquid which became its own character within the painting. This character symbolises whiteness and the feeling of being surrounded by it. As a person of colour growing up in England you are reminded of its presence ubiquitously. I playfully create scenes of hands gesturing amongst hands, silently communicating, as well as playing with vessels of cream, suspended in a web of letters denoting their skin colour.