Olivia Chin is a Naarm based multidisciplinary artist whose practice merges sculptural, textile and oil painting disciplines. Drawing from observational research, Olivia playfully departs from traditional life drawing, using gesture, intuition and colour to transport you through time, to explore imagined futures and surfaces with personalities. Her practice is informed by play, meditative deep listening to her surroundings, and exploring the tensions between materiality and time. She draws from her Australian-Malaysian-French heritage to unpack the influences of culture and memory.
Olivia graduated from a Bachelor of Fine Art in Sculpture from the National Art School of Australia in 2015, and maintains a consistent practice as an independent artist. Olivia has had solo and group exhibitions across Australia, including a recent solo exhibition at Seventh Gallery, and an upcoming Solo exhibition at Incinerator Gallery. Olivia has worked as a sculptor in film settings, and has produced several community engagement art projects.
Olivia is often considering the body in space, immersing herself in environments and transcribing those experiences. Her artworks gesture towards the role of the personal (the complexity of the everyday, illness, dreaming, disability, pain, strength, generative creativity, the active body), context and place (culture, belonging to a biosphere, urban and natural environments, memory), and the role of art making (archiving, documenting, embedding narratives).