Olivia Rowland

Olivia Rowland’s artwork harnesses both play and self-narration to navigate the day-to-day experience of anxiety disorder, and where this intersects with gender and voyeuristic notions of looking. Her work recruits the drawn line and the written word in tandem to express an enigmatic and playful selfhood and inner monologue full of anxiety, joy, curiosity, and rage. Snatches of speech, ambiguous characters, scribbled line and blocks of colour are utilised as a coping mechanism that result in frantic yet humorous artworks.  

Rowland graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2019 with an MA in Print. She is currently a practice-based PhD candidate at Manchester School of Art. 

Her print-based and animated works have been featured in numerous exhibitions since 2016. Highlights include Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, The Brick Lane Gallery, Alchemy Film & Arts Festival, Clifford Chance’s Postgraduate Printmaking in London, the neo:art prize and Masters: Screen and Stone at Bankside Gallery.