Clare Olivares

STATEMENT

Raised in California’s San Joaquin Valley, I began my art training at an early age with classes at the Fresno Art Center, now the Fresno Art Museum. After high school I attended the Okanogan School of Arts in Canada. Returning to California, I attended UC Berkeley receiving degrees in studio art and art history. Supporting my education by working in a physics research lab brought about my fascination with science imagery. The linear quality of bubble chamber interactions, the symmetry of the DNA model, the grandeur of Hubble telescope photographs and archetypal natural forms continue to inspire my work.

Art critic Charles Shere once wrote, “ Clare Olivares’ mixed media paintings work the interesting Bay Area Tantric mood of such painters as Janis Provisor and Phyllis Ideal – not always as successfully, but with considerable strength, resourcefulness and grace.” Then as now, my narrative landscapes are markers of location, identity and memory. All my artwork is contemplative and symbolic. My art history background is always present in my creative process and I am especially influenced by American visionary painters such as Agnes Pelton and Charles Burchfield. Contemporary poets like Jane Hirshfield, Mary Oliver and Diane Ackerman inform my poetry as well as my painting imagery.

I studied art history and studio art at the University of California at Berkeley and received my M.F.A. in painting from Mills College in Oakland, California. I have been awarded artist residencies at the Morris Graves Foundation (2007 & 2009), AROHO Foundation (2005) and Kala Art institute (1991). My work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the University of San Francisco, Loma Linda University, Richmond Art Center, Lisa Coscino Gallery, Museum Without Walls, Alexandria Museum of Art, Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Louisiana State University, Blutenweiss Gallery and Gallery Irohani. I live and work in Oakland, California.  

2007 Interview excerpt

LH: Where do you find yourself now in your work? What are you working on?

CO:  I’ve been working on a landscape series titled “Night Visions.”  I visited Ghost Ranch in New Mexico a few years back and I was really drawn to the clear night skies. I was there for a writer’s workshop and shared a small casita with two women writers, located at the base of a red & yellow rock canyon. Wow, waking up to that landscape every morning was wonderful! But every night while my roommates slept I would slip out and stare at the night skies, just enthralled. The stars seemed so close you could almost touch them. Living in an urban area you don’t often get that type of clarity with city lights and smog. Anyways, I started thinking about how the sky is so alive. We look at a starry night and think how beautiful & still it is but really there’s so much going on. Dying stars, black holes and the like, I see the sky as just so alive. We’re really looking at the passage of time. So I was thinking, while we’re sleeping the universe is going through all this dramatic evolution and mostly we’re oblivious. The night sky is a tableau, a stage, of changing characters and events. So I decided I’d just paint night scenes for a while with various natural elements like trees & mountains playing on that stage. Plus I love to paint with deep blues so it gave me an excuse to indulge in my blue love [laughter]. 

LH: You worked for several years in a physics lab. Tell me about that & how it affected your artwork.

CO: Yeah, in my twenties I worked in a physics research lab. Most of the time I didn’t know what anyone was talking about. Physicists are probably the most creative and far–out people on the planet! They come up with these weird theories about the nature of the universe and then spend their lives trying to prove the theories are true. It’s a pretty good life and I think they live in their heads a lot trying to figure things out. I suppose it was a comfortable environment for me because artists live in their heads as well. Physics and art making are very interior activities until you unleash your results out to the public. And then of course, it becomes a whole other thing which has very little to do with the original activity. 

Getting back to your question of how it affected my art, well, I think just being with creative people all day made me embrace my own creativity, to accept that doing what you love could make a good life. Not, perhaps, financially solid but a good and meaningful life nonetheless. 

LH: Talk to me a bit about “unleashing” your work. Are you talking about marketing work, getting shows and that activity? 

CO: Yes, I think I’m “old school.” When I was in grad school there were NO classes on marketing, portfolio/web presentation and that whole advertising end of art. We talked about how art could affect people, the core of creativity, the philosophical aspects of art, less commerce driven discussions. My natural shyness leads me to be reclusive so the whole world of networking for opportunities seems like alien water to me. Perhaps why I’ve always been on the periphery of the established “art world.” Sometimes it drives me to distraction but when I think about why I create it really isn’t about how many shows I’m in or selling work or being in a glossy art rag. Art making, for me, is all about connecting some of my humanity with the materials; finding and conveying that sweet spot within that sings. Maybe my singing is too off key for the established art world! [laughter]

LH:  You had some early teachers who were influential. Who were they?

CO: Right out of high school I left home for an art school in British Columbia. I was supposed to take a painting class but the class was full so I was put into another class that was a conceptual art class. I remember the teacher was an English artist, his name escapes me, but he gave an assignment to “find the center of town.” It was the first time I looked at art as idea rather than object. That made an impression.

After I had graduated from Cal (UC Berkeley) with my art history degree I kicked around for six years trying to figure out what to do next. I finally decided to go back to Cal and get my studio art degree in preparation for graduate school. Joan Brown was the head of the art department then and she was instrumental in my readmission for a second bachelor’s degree. She would give painting assignments each week, always unexpected. Her critiques were given in a caring and encouraging way so students felt free to experiment. Whenever I’m stuck in my studio I think back to her assignments. I also worked with Elmer Bischoff and printmaker Sylvia Lark; two other encouraging teachers whose critiques helped me grow as an artist. I loved critiques! In grad school I studied with Jay deFeo, a wonderful sprite! She was always joyful and gave me lots of tips on handling materials. She was the one who introduced me to oils, before I had only worked in acrylics.

LH: I’m curious what were a few of Joan Brown’s painting assignments?

CO: For one assignment she asked us to go home and collect three items: 2 things we loved and 1 item we hated. We brought them back to class and she asked us to create a painting that told a story about how these three objects related. So you can imagine the painting when someone brought in a rutabaga, a favorite T–shirt & their teddy bear. That exercise forces you to look at things in a new way; I still use it with variations. When hitting a wall I’ll say, “ok, today I’m going to paint with all the colors I hate and one color I love.”  Another assignment was to make a painting telling a story from an animal’s perspective. Her exercises were all about making you look at objects and composition from a new perspective.

LH: What do you see in the future for your work?

CO: Well, for several years I’ve been wrestling with how to combine my painting and poetry in a way that isn’t schlock or predictable. I studied medieval art in college and love illuminated manuscripts so perhaps I’ll tie into that somehow, in a new way. I also have a curiosity around science. I’m always looking at books & articles about science. I don’t understand most of what I read but it does trigger images in my head; just absorbing ideas & letting images percolate. It’s my own process of learning and discovery. Not really sure how it will all come together yet. As I get older I feel there’s more space in my head and my heart to spend on more ideas, letting my mind wander freely, to focus differently.