Olivia Walker: Artist and Author

Heart to canvas, mind to page

Bones, birds, and brave stories

Contextual Statement:

My practice is a carefully curated corpus that functions as a voice and embodied extension. This body of work operates across spectrums of conceptions and multiple dialectical tensions—positive/negative, confrontational/veiled, real/unreal, transcendent/abyssal—serving as somatic and shadow manifestations of selfhood. My creative practice offers both refuge and liberation from the irrationalities of lived experience, particularly as mediated through the phenomenological lens of OCD, anxiety, and trauma. 

Poetic veins run through my work, transmuting private politics into public discourse, fostering empathic resonance and interpersonal connectivity. Through multimedia compositions, characterized by symbolic density, semantic collage, and transformation of familiar subjects, I interrogate notions of value, identity, and habitual patterns, revealing turbulent emotional territories through visually controlled presentation. Through the perceptual framework of OCD, I've constructed visual narratives where avian forms emerge from stone fruits, deploying metaphorical constructs such as distorted, irrational beliefs. I include colloquial expressions such as "a little bird told me," sparrows as protective entities, “you can lead a horse to water...,” and bridling something/someone, reflecting disordered cognitive patterns or maladaptive belief structures emergent from nature and nurturing. My compositions function as palimpsests—visually cohesive exteriors concealing interior landscapes of disquietude.

My material practice integrates clay, cast resin, acrylic paint, natural materials, and textual elements, recreating or materializing the intangible. Recurring motifs include avian, equine, anatomical, and figurative imagery—reflecting the tension between constraint and freedom—alongside figurative elements and mundane artifacts recontextualized within mental health discourses. The work is characterized by repetition and quotidian imagery. Its efficacy resides in artistic, spectatorial reflection/realization, each piece contributing to an anthology that facilitates catharsis while establishing purpose.

This confessional portfolio emphasizes disorders and relational dynamics, challenging societal perceptions of mental health. By creating visceral, mixed-media representations, I’m participating in the larger artistic movement dismantling shame and secrecy around mental conditions. My use of natural imagery and dark undertones serve as metaphors for how mental health challenges are simultaneously natural yet often hidden in shadows. Society ordinarily masks the uncommon or uncomfortable.

My narratives evoke melancholy, cognitive dissonance, and discomfort as well as occasional transcendence or hope. The act of making private experience public doesn’t diminish its sacred dimensions but rather affords it space and legitimacy within broader discourse. Unlike predecessors who embrace transgressive or provocative aesthetics, I present controlled chaos within beauty. Initial perception suggests serenity, but sustained engagement reveals subtle disruptions of normative order. Drawing from the theoretical frameworks and visual vocabularies of confessional artists, expressionists, surrealists, and poets, I examine perceptual processes and interstices of subjective experience and objective reality. 

I aim to normalize and destigmatize phenomena that aren't understood or addressed. My work transcends mere therapeutic exercise to become an invitation for subsurface, authentic communication within cultural and social settings that frequently privilege polished façades and ubiquitous ideologies. Weaving together fragments of my life, documents of the contemporary human condition, artworks become artifacts that reveal cultural attitudes toward emotion, vulnerability, intimacy, survival/coping strategies, and mental health at this moment in history. Art holds the power to bridge divides, inviting viewers to recognize themselves in others' stories, developing empathy—not as passive sentiment, but as active engagement with different perspectives. I strive to illuminate the connective tissue binding us despite apparent differences, challenging viewers to consider how individual journeys and dispositions contribute to the broader social fabric, engendering stronger relationships.