Past Catalogue 2022

Award-winning landscape painter Jessica Oliver (MFA) trained classically in Florence in 2010 and completed her BA (Hons) at City & Guilds of London Art School. VISTA is a collection of recent paintings, created over the past six months in her new Suffolk studio.

When the World Wakes - oil on linen 70 x 100cm SOLD

Painted at breaking dawn in late spring, this piece brought Oliver’s focus on gestural mark-making and facteur to the fore; this would go on to inform the collection as a whole. The distinctive vibrancy of the palette and brush strokes conveys a vivid impression of dawn light; its expressive atmosphere and lyrical exploration of the natural world marks a ‘dawning’ of the themes that would become inherent to this collection.

Whimsy - oil on linen 90 x 80cm SOLD
Shortlisted Finalist for RA Summer Exhibition

Whimsy is a vernal celebration of the Romantic palette, and an inquiry into a certain ‘buoyancy’ of light and luminosity. Recently announced as a shortlisted finalist artwork for The Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition 2022, this painting is an embodiment of the optimism often found in sky-gazing.

While the World Sleeps - oil on linen 70 x 100cm SOLD

Painted nocturnally throughout the winter months, While the World Sleeps was informed by the human instinct to seek revival and optimism in the promise of spring. Ethereal cloud formations invite a visual journey into dream and daydream – familiar, yet otherworldly – encouraging the eye to immerse itself in the movement and layering of paint and hue.

Impression - oil on linen, 60 x 90cm SOLD

A nebula of rich umbers, red pigments and cool blues, Impression’s storm-like quality nods to the Romantic evocation of mood through atmosphere in the Natural world. Painted en plein air, this work captures the tension and dynamism of a summer storm gathering near the Artist’s Suffolk studio.

Solstice - oil on linen, 120 x 150cm SOLD

Started on the shortest day of the year, Solstice is a celebration of the iconic `Suffolk Sky’, and the vital nature of light amidst the muted, grey-brown days of winter. Smoky brushstrokes and rich umber earth tones capture the limitless depth and space afforded by cloudscape, while conveying a certain transcendent beauty in the limited light afforded during the winter months.

Solitude - oil on linen, 60 x 80cm SOLD

A lone Suffolk pine tree perches beneath skies alive with a gathering storm. While there is an element of drama to the imagined work, the landscape remains inviting in its glimmering luminosity. We are left with an impression of the restorative (if at times turbulent) nature of solitude, contemplation, and isolation. The exhilaration of standing ‘on the precipice’.

Sienna Sky - oil on linen, 90 x 150cm

Sienna Sky focuses on the alchemical process of mixing traditional oil paint colours from raw pigments. Oliver predominantly used Raw Umber and Sienna pigments, with traditional Lapis Lazuli glazes, ( touches of brighter blue and white tones were only used in the final stages) to create a vivid impression of Autumn Light. The juxtaposition of ‘earth’ tones and a sense of airy spaciousness conveys the dynamic sensation of light and season in a state of flux

Into the Deep - oil on linen, 120 x 150cm SOLD

Into the Deep depicts a view upward from the depths of a turquoise sea, toward the light at play on the surface of the waves. An alternative perspective, unique in this collection, allows the artist to explore light anew as it travels through the element of water. Refracting and undulating impressions of sunlight are captured with expressive brushstrokes, in a sublime meditation on the multiplicity of marine blues.

The Sirens Diptych oil on linen 64 x 130 SOLD

An odyssey into fragmenting space and light, Sirens lures the viewer through passages of paint, pigment and gesture, setting the eye adrift within the elemental atmosphere. They draw variously on motifs of cloudscape, lagoons, the surface of deep water and the oscillation of painterly mark making. The two works may be exhibited together or separately.

Ethereal | & || - oil on arches paper 40 x 50cm framed SOLD

Ethereal summer light studies, these works capture the movement and energetic charge of balmy June days. Integral to these works are a sense of softness and serene cloud formations. The abstraction and looseness of the brushstrokes create a sense of playfulness, evoking the simple pleasures of summer.

Elemental - oil on arches paper, 75 x 55cm SOLD

As an Ambassador of Michael Harding Oil Paint, Oliver employs the most vibrant pigments of turquoise and rose pinks to convey the daydream of watery nebulas, and the movement of clouds and waves in summer. The viewer is invited to dive visually into the space and become submerged in the luminous blues of the composition. Elemental is a celebration of gesture and vibrancy, the first in a new series.

Equinox - oil on linen, 190 x 170cm SOLD

Painted at Old Jet, Bentwaters during an Artist Residency as the artist first moved to Suffolk, this piece was a direct study of the light, landscape and skies synonymous with the county. A limited palette conveys the distinctive hazy light encountered during plein air observations around the studios.

Allegory 2022 oil on linen, 65 x 100cm

Allegory represents the figurative origin of the VISTA series. The walled forest beneath the endless storming skies explores thematic elements of boundary, expansion and historical Romantic landscape painting in Suffolk. The tradition of landscape painting in the county is often romanticised, Constable-esque and adherent to a conservative palette and composition. Allegory nods to the artistic legacy with which the artist had begun to converse, and signals an engagement with the well-trodden path of figurative painting depicting pastoral landscapes and idylls.

Sutton Heath - oil on linen, 40 x 80cm

Painted plein air at Sutton Heath near the artists studio, this figurative piece depicts the warm pastel light of summer nights. The three trees act as ‘sentinel' spectres amidst an impressionist sunset, another evocation of the Romantic Suffolk landscape tradition. The misty blending of the oils summons up a whimsical atmosphere, slightly removed from ordinary life.

Sketchbook Study - oil on arches paper 13 x 17cm framed

The first in a series of many, this sketchbook piece was a key reference for the artist in her primary and secondary research stages for these works.

Sublimity 2021, oil on linen, 55 x 36cm SOLD

Sublimity, representation, atmosphere, expansion. These central themes formed the basis of the research Oliver did to prepare for creating this body of work; this work, oriented in ‘portrait’ rather than ‘landscape’ view, focuses the gaze on the subtle beauty of the Suffolk skyscape as a distinctive character – changeable and undefinable.

Fading Summer | & || oil on linen 30 x 23cm Framed

Spacious, fresh and dewy, these studies of fading misty light capture a quiet stillness over the Suffolk landscape, early in the morning and at late sunset. The instinctive poignancy of day’s beginning and end.

Summer Light I - oil on linen , 30 x 40cm

Dawn’s pink light breaks over an expansive sea from high above; the sense of perspective afforded by a high vantage point, the edge of the precipice. The peace of gazing upon an endless horizon, in the midst of summer’s warm embrace.

Price List 2022

SOLD

All Oil Paintings on Arches Paper include a handmade bespoke frame with exhibition glass included. For enquiries into this service you can also contact Jessica via the contact page.