About
born 2000, Boonton, New Jersey, USA
Education
2024-2026 (expected) - Master of Fine Art, Painting - Frank Mohr Institute, Minerva Art Academy, Groningen, Netherlands
2018-2022 - Bachelor of Arts, Art History and American Studies - Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, The George Washington University, Washington DC, USA
CV
Olivia Niuman (b. 2000, New Jersey, USA) is a Dutch-American artist who is interested in how personal modes of perception influence how we find meaning in our surroundings.
She received her Bachelor’s degree in Art History and American Studies from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and the theoretical notions from this education form the foundation of her painting practice. She is fascinated by how one fact, event, or idea can be interpreted differently depending on one’s cultural background and historical moment. Relative color relationships, exaggerations of scale, and unexpected contrasts are specific formal tools that she uses to create unresolved tension; for her, painting is a way out of the constant demand to always have the correct answer.
She has shown work internationally, including at the McLean Project for the Arts, McLean, Virginia, USA; Modern Visual Arts, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA; Rat Gallery, Washington DC, USA; Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, Rhode Island, USA; SIGN Project Space, Groningen, Netherlands
She also maintains a writing practice, working as a freelancer to produce text for artists, galleries, and publications. Olivia is currently studying for her Master’s degree in painting at the Frank Mohr Institute in Groningen, Netherlands.
Statement
My recent work takes natural or geological elements as a starting point. I begin with a sketch of specific elements from cropped and rotated photos to create a composition, and then quickly abandon the sketch as I shift colors and exaggerate contrasts, forms, and scale to bring focus back to the act of painting as a subjective way of looking. Often, the canvas is rotated toward the end of the process, further abstracting it from my original intentions and allowing it to become something new again.
In a sense, my process and the resulting work are representations of the notion that everyone looks in a different way and sees what they want to see. Like the titles - which are often idioms or metaphors that refer to the landscape but also carry a hidden double or triple meaning - the paintings are visually reminiscent of the world but stop short of clear recognition, offering a path for each viewer to find their own meaning.