Olivia Stanton – 2004

Exhibition Reviews

“Olivia Stanton studied painting in the early 1970s at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London and has exhibited regularly since then in Britain and France. Her work is landscape-based, but betrays a leaning towards abstraction which tightens the structure of her paintings substantially. This, coupled with a sophisticated understanding of colour used both descriptively and decoratively, accounts for the strength of her work. She draws with lyrical precision and has a real feeling for paint”

Andrew Lambirth, The Spectator, 8 May 2004.

“Olivia Stanton has exhibited regularly in England and France since she left the Byam Shaw School of Art in London in the Seventies. Although her paintings are always based on particular places and views – here and there one can distinguish a row of trees, the curve of a road or fence, even a dustbin – they are essentially abstractions, and glimpses of recognisable features of the landscape are rare. These are skilfully controlled paintings. The colour is rubbed on and no brushstrokes are visible, but they are given a wild sense of movement through the abstract shapes themselves. With a particularly subtle deployment of colour, sometimes sombre, sometimes brilliant, the artist creates a variety of different moods.”

The Week, 15 May 2004

“Olivia Stanton’s latest exhibition until May 30th at Gallery286, 286 Earl’s Court Road, shows how confident she has become and this is reflected in her latest work. “Copy Cat” (2002) stands out in the upstairs gallery, an abstract landscape in swirling purples, blues and a diagonal area of striped white and dark purple. The artist lived for many years in a hilltop region of France and many of her paintings are based on this particular French landscape. Today she lives near Hastings with artist David Henderson and “East Ascent” in the downstairs corridor was the first painting that she worked on after they returned to live on the south coast of England in 2001. I think that it is one of the best paintings in the show, as well as “Copy Cat” (2002).

Her more recent work has clearer, sharper edges but this was also the case in “Goats’ Pen” (1997) which has a wonderful diagonal of light which makes you almost feel the sunshine against the vegetation. She also paints with vibrant acid yellows, apple greens and sky blues added to bright purples and reds. Downstairs “Passing Go” (2003) is a perfect example of the sharper edges and vibrant colours. Perhaps she finds the coastal English landscape requires a different approach? Both the 2002 and 2004 exhibitions show how far her work has developed since her artschool days in the late 1970s at Byam Shaw in London (now part of the new University of the Arts) and her small exhibitions at Piers Feetham Gallery in Chelsea. In those shows her work, often drawings, was much tighter and more conventional but now she has really found her feet and is working exceptionally well. The paintings are joyful, colourful and make you want to visit the countryside again to see which shapes represent which trees or fields. I bought “Grandmother’s Footsteps” from the 2002 show and wake up every morning to its happy shades and colours.

The artist’s hard work over many years has paid off and it is a wise person who invests in her work now, as well as enjoying the paintings, as one day her work will be of far greater value than it appears today. Olivia Stanton is not just an ordinary professional artist, she is an exceptional painter. Details of her work will appear in the next edition of “Dictionary of Artists in Great Britain since 1945” and she well deserves to be there!

Heather Waddell
London Art and Artists Guide

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