Olivia Brown lives and works in West Yorkshire. She graduated from Manchester University in 1999 with a first class honours degree in Contemporary Crafts and set up her studio at home.
She has held exhibitions throughout the UK and also worked on a number of highly prestigious site specific installations. One of these was the “Libre les grenouilles” shown at the Crafts Council in 2002 in which the plight of frogs in the French restaurant trade was highlighted. Another was “Elvis the whippet’s salon”, a life size vintage style canine coiffeur outlet which toured the UK in 2002.
In 2003 she created “Bonemouth Pier” a commission which depicted canine frolics whilst holidaying in Bonemouth. Then came “Operation Jumpsuit”, probably the most ambitious project of all, where in Middlesborough town centre, Olivia created a jumpsuit factory powered by overworked rats and their feline boss called Sinclair. Here 300 individually modelled rats stood alongside a clan of Scottish terriers whose ancient trade in handmade jumpsuits had been stolen by the cat and his crow accomplices. What an imagination!!
“The Dog’s Home” was the latest commissioned piece highlighting some of the reasons why dogs find themselves abandoned – depicting rows of forlorn canines in their kennels acting out their individual stories. This work was created for The Millennium Galleries in Sheffield and was exhibited in 2007.
The Gallery owners are proud to become a stockist of Olivia’s work and look forward to seeing fresh manifestations of her creativity in the times ahead.
