Olivia Bernard
In sculpture and drawings, my work is a search for meaning. Through tactile engagement with materials, I develop a vocabulary of physical and optical elements. While assembling and combining these fragments, unconscious impulses reveal my intentions, which clarify as materials and images are transformed into completed drawings, objects or installations. The final form of a finished piece is inextricably bound with the process of being made, and informed by the personal, social, political context in which I work.
As I live both in the country and the city, I alternate between longing for the beauty, order and calm of nature, and being jarred by chaos, technological overload, and tragic world events. I want to forget that, nature, too, is chaotic and violent, and that we are the creators of the jarring experiences of life. My work is a means to explore these discrepancies of perception and belief. I work from the inside out, looking for qualities of shape, volume, texture, color, or line, that match my internal experience. Currently, I am interested in impermanence and ethereality. I use plaster along with diaphanous cloth, mylar, wax, paper, pigments and surfaces that provide translucency. I work in layers applying material, then removing it, covering and uncovering, building and reducing, and use repetitive activities such as marking, rubbing, wrapping, stroking, folding, wrinkling. This process creates depth and history in each work as it develops over time. Touch and gesture connect image and substance to thought and emotion. As I work I navigate the boundaries between what is hopeful, ethereal, or beautiful, and what is dangerous, grievous or macabre.