Karyn Olivier’s artistic practice merges multiple histories and collective memory with present-day narratives. Through the slight manipulation of familiar objects and spaces, such as coffee tables, playground slides, or grocery stores, the artist recontextualizes the viewer’s relationship to the ordinary. Questioning what we presume to be the function or facts of an object or space, she asks us to reconcile memory with conventional meanings, ultimately revealing contradictions as well as new possibilities and ideas. Olivier’s work often reflects on public versus private space, recalling communal nostalgias connected to social and physical experiences and how those phenomena relate to inclusivity and acceptance.
How we interact with and dissect conflicting narratives and their representation in art are core elements of Olivier’s practice. Actively engaged in reinterpreting the role of monuments, the artist has created both temporary and permanent sculptures and installations for the public. With recurring themes of absence, invisibility, and displacement, often embedded in the viewing experience itself, the artist intervenes in “blind spots”—unseen and unconsidered spaces—drawing attention to the periphery. Tethering the formidable and the fragile, melancholy and hope, Olivier’s work echoes the tension that exists in our shifting personal and civic lives.
Born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1968, and raised in the United States, Olivier received an M.F.A from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a B.A. at Dartmouth College.
Olivier’s recent solo exhibition “Everything That’s Alive Moves” at Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art is now traveling to the University of Buffalo, CFA Gallery, opening on October 29, 2020.