Olivia Aston Skinner

My art practice focuses on drawing patterns and flowers from my own viewpoint, rather than adhering to conventional representations. My art reflects my personal perspective, portraying subjects not as they appear, but as I perceive them.

Being able to produce art using different mediums allows me to express different ideas and emotions. The meaning behind my practice is creating art as a coping mechanism, living with an invisible disability. I focus on a practice to distract myself from my illness. I work on a smaller scale to enhance the details in my work and have previously used textiles to refer to the tactility and intimacy of my concept.

My inspiration primarily comes from the world around me. I look at objects and pick out the fine details to influence my practice.

Individuals like me, who live with a disability, perceive the world differently. Creating art provides an insight into our unique perspectives, explaining why my art is possibly a blend of realism and surrealism.

Drawing inspiration from artists like Frida Kahlo, who used art to express emotions living with an invisible illness, motivated me to use art as a means of coping and expression for my own condition.

My project focuses on recreating the subject through my perspective.

I mainly create pattern works as I view art as a method to convey how I feel and what I think as well as a coping or therapeutic tool with living with an invisible illness.

My initial idea was to create art that doesn’t visually represent my disability but instead for the audience to acknowledge what I visualise, as well as understanding the process of creating my art and the reasons why I create.

Each stroke with a pen became a reflection of emotions living with a disability. My art will vary, dependent on how I was managing. While my art may not depict my disability visually, it serves as a window into my mind, inviting viewers to understand and empathise. Sharing my creative process and emotions behind it aims to challenge the perceptions of what I think.

During the second trimester, I began to create alternative drawings, particularly with pen, which allowed me to break free from repetitive processes and time constraints of using pencils. Pen work offered a therapeutic approach, demanding less precision and encouraged more experimentations.