Olivia Walker ( She/Her )

Obsessive, perfectionistic, and highly focused describe the most successful individuals and professionals. I have always had a creative drive, introspective proclivity, the strength to be vulnerable, assiduous tendencies, and insightfulness. At the age of eleven, I was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I started medication and CBT, which aided me in regaining control of my thoughts and tolerating discomfort or uncertainty. My compulsions manifest in my need for accuracy and comfort through over-cleaning, excessive product usage, dressing and makeup application fixations, or obsessing over/avoiding photographs of myself. These behaviors represent my struggle to maintain order and control as I maneuver through this complex world. I see reflected in our society a desire to avoid the uncomfortable. In the process of avoiding pain, we can miss opportunities that challenge us and the hidden beauty in our surroundings. 

I have found solace in my work as a visual artist and a writer, and learned to embrace the positive qualities that stem from my diagnosis. In my work, I consider and address a multitude of struggles: obsessions, compulsions, anxiety, triggers, and depersonalization/derealization. Through my work, I strive to find the balance between the grotesque and beautiful and discomfort and solace. 

I have learned that it is crucial to consider both the manipulation of materials and the installation (use of space). I utilize sculpture to create literal and metaphorical representations of subjects that my brain highlights. An example of this practice is a wax gummy bear casted in metal, and then placed on several tongues to represent the variation in semiotic value or experience. I also formed an installation that incorporates text and hand-made ceramic toilet paper rolls, placing emphasis on contamination compulsions. I attempt to fabricate an experience for viewers by recreating my obsessions, compulsions, and anxiety in a discernible way. My work is inspired by the semiotic value of objects, triggers, and the relationship between trauma and perception.

The work I create is a collage or combination of transmutation, construction, drawing, and text. I challenge myself to work with media such as clay, metal, paper, and found material to investigate the dialogue and dichotomy between intimacy and opposition, structure and ruin, reality and unreality, and order and chaos. While the conceptuality is personal, artists I study inspire me to explore audience participation, space, and unusual materials such as soap, bodily fluids, and textiles. Through reading web articles, excerpts from biographies, and transcripts of interviews with artists such as Ana Mendieta, Yayoi Kusama, Andy Warhol, Helen Chadwick, Judy Chicago, and Janine Antoni, as well as traveling to various galleries and museums (such as The Tate, Lisson, and Saatchi), I accumulated an abundance of knowledge to strengthen and inform my artistic experimentation. I researched the nuanced overlap between interior and exterior lives. I want to investigate the hidden aspects of individual reality and psychology. 

I moved from an arts boarding school in Michigan to the Central Saint Martins Foundation course. As someone who enjoys traveling, I take advantage of London by visiting various cities within England and Europe to stretch my artistic awareness. UAL and London’s fine art courses highlight research, analysis, process exploration, and a fluid and flexible approach to discipline, which is an integral practice. I want to deepen my knowledge of conceptual and contextual studies and experiment with technique and creative writing.

I want to use my failures and successes to model a path to help others. I hope my work can act as an outlet for anxiety, exposure, and a platform to de-stigmatize mental illness. Managed obsession and perfectionism, to which I add empathy, creativity, and passion, give one a solid recipe for a successful artist and citizen. 

Olivia Walker is a visual artist and writer, born in New York City and raised predominantly in California. Her work portrays her experience with OCD, and her practice has aided her in finding solace. She has learned to embrace the positive qualities that stem from the diagnosis. In her writing; her narrative of scene and summary, her poetry, and complex literary pieces, she considers and addresses a multitude of struggles: obsessions, compulsions, triggers, and depersonalization/derealization that come with OCD. She strives to find the balance between the grotesque and beautiful and discomfort and solace. She investigates the dialogue and dichotomy between intimacy and opposition, structure and ruin, reality and unreality, and inner battles with order and chaos. She hopes her intricate, picturesque, vulnerable, metaphorical, and insightful writing can act as exposure and a tool for moving on, accepting, and escaping her past, as well as a platform to de-stigmatize mental illness.