Olivia Minshall – PostBac2020

Olivia Minshall (b. 1993 in Aurora, IL) is an artist based in Chicago, IL.

Olivia received her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Oregon where she studied Digital Arts and Comparative Literature. She is currently a Post-Baccalaureate student in the Painting and Drawing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Her process and practice involves the ego, sexuality, mental illness and consumption, via an approach that is dark witted, crass, melancholic, and lewd. The application of paint is a combination of gestural mark making and concentrated intention. Her paintings allow for a critique of the variables that compose what we are and what we do.

Artist Statement

My work functions as a visual abrasion.

Coarse in touch, coarse in thought.

A crude disposition of texture and layers; a satirical stage for the depths of humanity. Tailored to intrude, suppress, and humor.

Though, who I’m tailoring to isn’t ever really clear.

Is it you, or me?

The future of my practice is in the ongoing and forever changing examination of ego, sexuality, mental illness, vice, and consumption.

I paint to understand the human condition.

To dissect the way we are:

bleak, cheeky, and full of shit.