Olivia-Anna Boden

I create fictitious, dreamlike worlds within my work through the act of combining pre-existing visual codes, e.g sacred hearts, with my own characters and narratives. My work acts as a way for me to translate my personal emotions, thoughts and opinions, such as my ambiguous spiritual beliefs surrounding Christianity, into physical forms and the audience can interpret this in different ways. I am interested in subjects such as Catholic iconography and Victorian/early 20th century illustration because of their strong use of colour, maximalist compositions and symbolism, which I replicate in my own work to create an appearance of decadence and the surreal. I have strong emotional connections to all of my artworks, particularly my textile artworks such as ‘The Birth of The Swan Princess’ due to the laboriously attentive attitude necessary to create them. Dedicating extensive amounts of time for the production of an artwork is an important part of my practice, as this commitment and hyper-focus produces a great visual intensity to the finished artwork. 

I do not limit myself to one specific material or technique: I work in mixed media and create both large- and small-scale artworks that are typically decoratively kitsch in appearance, and I also experiment with creating 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional artworks. Displaying these works alongside one another in installations such as ‘The Swan Shrine’ creates a fully immersive and interactive viewing experience between the audience and the artwork, and my excessive use of repetitive motifs (such as swans) as well as creating sequential artworks (such as triptychs) constructs a unanimous narrative when my work is displayed and viewed collectively, making my work more accessible and understandable to the audience. It is important to me that my work does not alienate my audience, as this is something that I have personally experienced when viewing contemporary art in a gallery setting.