Olivia Tawzer
Olivia Tawzer is an artist from Chattanooga, TN with a practice based in storytelling and figuration. Her narratives emerge from an accumulation of memories, imagination, and observation. Born and raised in the Bible Belt of Southern Appalachia, she is informed by the culture and stereotypes of this region. Some prevalent ideas in her work are gender, power, and interconnectedness. She graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in the spring of 2021 with her BFA in Painting and Drawing and works as a licensed tattoo artist. Tawzer has shown work in spaces such as Red Arrow Gallery in Nashville, TN; Carnation Contemporary in Portland, OR; and Soft Times Gallery in San Francisco, CA.
Collect Bean: What does growth mean to you?
Olivia Tawzer: Growth to me is learning, adjusting, and accepting that this happens in cycles. There are seasons for different kinds of growth, and I believe nourishing specific areas of life while allowing others to rest creates a balanced approach to personal development.
Collect Bean: How do you decide the subject matter of a painting?
Olivia Tawzer: I am drawn to making paintings where there is connection or conflict happening. I think of the viewer as a participant in the action and try to position them in an active way. Usually, I have an idea for a scenario, then think of who would be playing out that scene and what relationship the viewer has with them. Sometimes the viewer is a person standing in front of the scene, and sometimes a cricket in the grass or a bird flying overhead.
Collect Bean: What does your painting process look like from start to finish?
Olivia Tawzer: Once I have an idea for what I want to paint, I start constructing a digital image. This process is a mixture of drawing and collage, where I can sketch and upload source images. What makes drawing digitally so appealing to me is the ability to manipulate layers—moving elements around, resizing, and warping as needed. I decide what dimension my sketch should be, build my canvas, and project the drawing onto it. I start with acrylic and block in colors, constantly painting over what I just painted to figure out lighting and color. One of the problems I face in the actual painting process is defining the lighting, particularly because my source images have different light sources. Throughout the painting process, I upload photos of my in-progress painting onto my iPad and draw on the picture to brainstorm big moves. I thoroughly enjoy sketching, planning and starting paintings, but find actually painting them to be very challenging.
Collect Bean: How do you think your work has evolved?
Olivia Tawzer: My work has evolved conceptually and stylistically over the past few years. It has always been autobiographical, and used to heavily center around my dad, who died while I was in undergrad.
As I have healed, my subject matter has shifted. My work is less about a specific person now and more about relationships and structures. Every painting used to be a specific story or memory, and now they are derived from a collection of influences.
Stylistically, I think my paintings have gotten more complex, and I am open to depicting some things very simply or pushing others to be rendered in a more lifelike manner. I have found that the process of working and reworking an image is important to my process, and creating interesting compositions, perspectives, and lighting situations is my focus. My work is currently evolving a lot based on materials as I have recently started using an airbrush for acrylics and using oil paint for the first time in years.
Collect Bean: Where are you currently finding inspiration?
Olivia Tawzer: I find inspiration in my close relationships with my sisters and friends, my experience growing up and living in southern Appalachia, and the general social and political climate. I try to balance love, hope, and conflict in my practice. I want to make work relevant to what is going on around me but never from a jaded perspective. Robin F Williams, Matt Bollinger, and Danica Lundy are some of my favorite painters right now.
