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Olive Diamond employs the narratives of identity, displacement and migration as inspiration for this series of works. As Diamond explains, her interest in migration stems from it being a universal phenomenon that connects a multitude of communities.
Meditating figuration and abstraction, Diamond’s works compound various stylistic references, namely the loose haziness of Impressionist strokes and the rhythmic precision of photorealistic paintings. Her artistic process starts with the ground which subsequently dictates the rest of the composition. Working intuitively, Diamond begins with gestural swaths of colour, slowly adapting them to form shapes that allude to fantastical landscapes.
Coalescing visions of real sceneries and imagined lands, the works aesthetically draw from Diamond’s Jewish roots, referencing traditional synagogue mosaics, frescoes and stained glass imagery to which landscapes are central. The artist also attributes her inspiration to the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. These works reflect the Kabbalah’s idea of losing yourself to find and receive the knowledge of that which you wish to understand.
Building on notions of memory and nostalgia, the present series unfolds into a mesmeric dreamscape. The paintings serve as a beacon for the figures in the ceramics. The artist explains that having the two in conversation allows the paintings to assume an idyllic quality; as a mirage that “becomes a form of mental respite for the figures on their journey …propelling and motivating their travel.” By employing two different mediums to depict landscapes and human figures, Diamond inspires tension between nature and man-made structures, inviting the viewer to examine the distinctions between the various liminal spaces held at the junction of the present works. -
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