Olivia petrides

Flux

February 8, 2020 - July 18, 2020
Opening reception February 8, 2 - 5 p.m.

Olivia Petrides: Flux opens at OS Projects on Saturday, February 8 and continues through July 18. A reception for the artist will take place from 2 – 5 pm on the same day as the opening.

Olivia Petrides creates baroque abstractions on paper based on her travels to areas of the world that contain emblematic, awe-inspiring natural features and phenomena--volcanoes, icebergs, geological rifts and auroras. Influenced by 19th century painters, such as Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt, Petrides is especially interested in how evocations of the sublime resonate today when so many of nature’s mechanisms are being disrupted.

Petrides translates the flux of natural phenomena into a language of discrete marks and fluid gestures. Her images are constructed from layers of gouache and pours of ink that soak the paper while leaving oases of white. She utilizes a process of subtraction by sandpapering the coated surface, overlaying ink washes, then reconstructing the image repeatedly. Dramatic tonal contrasts and the topography of fluid-derived shapes dictate the composition, while layer upon layer of marks create contrasting movements and disparate perspectives in the same space. Like the aurora, the resulting image is a provisional conclusion to an evolving process.

Through an intense and sustained physical engagement with her materials and environment, Petrides searches for new ways to profile and embody ambivalent feelings about the world and our place within it.

About the Artist

Olivia Petrides has exhibited her art work in galleries and museums in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Scotland, Seattle, Washington D.C. and Chicago. Her works are in the public collections of the Smithsonian, the U.S. Park Service, the Field Museum, Illinois State Museum and Hafnarborg Institute of Art (Iceland), among others.

Petrides has been awarded numerous grants and artist residencies. They include a Fulbright Grant to Iceland, American Scandinavian Foundation Grants, an Illinois Arts Council Governor’s Exchange Award, a Margaret Klimek Phillips Award and a Wilder Travel Grant for Excellence in Teaching. She has been in residence at the Reykjavik Kjarval Museum, the Faroe Islands Museum of Natural History, the Vermont Studio Center, Yellowstone National Park and the Ragdale Foundation.

Petrides has curated exchange exhibitions between artists in Iceland and the Faroe Islands and artists who reside in Chicago. She is also the illustrator of six field guides, including two in the classic Peterson Field Guide Series, as well as four volumes issued by Explorer Press and Stackpole Press. This acute level of observation forms the basis for her studio practice.

Installation Images

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