Olivia Henderson
With an intention to discover something new each time she picks up a brush, Olivia’s favorite pieces share her process as well as the final product with her audience, deriving from pushing through continuous trial and error, and often new techniques, to present a visual emotion that ultimately drives the viewer’s encounter with her art. In her paintings and sketches, there lies an effortless and yet powerful presentation of drawing, combined with a complex and yet well-balanced presentation of color.
“I find myself pushing through new concepts or color combinations driven by in-the-moment emotions ranging from joyful memories to dark fears, and allow them to drain out of me through the brush, often times becoming completely consumed in the process while fighting to keep in my zone.”
Both self and traditionally-taught, Olivia attended Southern Methodist University where she majored in Fine Art. Inspired by the human form and its many imperfections, her focus is on using mixed mediums of paints and pastels, with the decisive use of light and darkness, to portray and express a full gamut of emotions experienced in her life; memories of her childhood lake house with her father – which includes a soundtrack of Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Jr. and Willie Nelson, to name a few – drive her back to a place of pure innocence and joy, the “light” to her otherwise darker themes associated with past personal experiences and questioning self-worth. Her art presents a composition of her stories whether they be playful memories or the journey through life’s traumas and into healing.
While she invites the audience to experience the visual and often emotional themes in her pieces, Olivia also hopes her work can bring awareness to the darkness that many youths today find themselves wading through, and to help those struggling with finding the light.
