Marion Olsen

Painting
New Zealand born Professional Singer, mezzo-soprano Marion Olsen, claimed her artistic inheritance while recovering from glandular fever during 1996. Unable to sing, she began painting. She held her first exhibition in November that year, selling most of her work. Encouraged by this she bought bigger brushes and larger sheets of paper and has enjoyed exploring the wide possibilities of watercolours. Flowers are still a preoccupation; alternating between ambitiously detailed botanical style, and a bolder, freer, larger exploration of form and colour, and in the later paintings fleeting design references are sometimes incorporated.

I became involved with a London Collective, ‘Arte Toi’ in 2010 and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to explore figure drawing and fast figure drawing in the Arte Toi Workshops with Trish Stevenson who was inspired by the work of Cecil Collins. I felt that it was like discovering my own handwriting! Another exploration has been an Icon Workshop using egg tempera. More exciting possibilities for exploration!

In 2013, I spent some time in New Zealand working in Trish Stevenson’s newly built art studio, exploring detailed plant forms and treating the same plant forms in a similar way to fast figure drawing. During this time I was giving myself permission to explore and permission to fail. I wrote some of the journey into the paintings, some of it is visible, and covering paint has obliterated some of the writing. It felt as if the mere fact of writing it down was enough, and that there was a symbolism in washing the words away.

At the beginning of 2014 I did four sessions with another group of Cecil Collins-inspired artists. This was an exploration of a ‘spiritual ‘ and a meditative approach to painting. We painted to music, sometimes with the eyes closed, sometimes exploring deep feelings, sometimes just playing. The medium was acrylic, and I was using sponge rollers and a palette knife, almost never a brush. I have been trying to balance a freedom of expression with some elements of control. The outcome has been some of the larger paintings that are being shown in this exhibition. These were painted very fast with only a germ of an idea, or sometimes no idea, as I began to paint. There often seems to be an element of design in my work that I would like to explore further. I also envisage a series of much larger acrylic paintings on canvas.