Olivia Rose Roberts.

Prior to enrolling in the Bachelor of Fine Arts in early 2020, Olivia attended the Comics and Graphic Novels Program at Camosun College in Victoria, BC as part of the 2016/2017 class and graduated with a certificate. After a few years of making comics for indie publishers, she decided to enroll in the BFA to hone her skills as an artist, learn different mediums, and learn new techniques that can be incorporated into her comic work.

            Throughout her time in the BFA, she also discovered that, as an artist, Olivia leans toward Pop Art and incorporating pop culture into her work. This approach has allowed her to experiment with combining comic art motifs with fine art techniques, focusing on line work, mark-making and exaggeration. Most of her artistic influences are a combination of comic/graphic artists, mangaka, fine artists, and filmmakers. She primarily creates her art in drawing and/or painting mediums or creating mixed media work.  

            The work Roller Rumble was created using a variety of mediums such as watercolour, ink, graphite, and pencil crayon. Out of Olivia’s body of work, it is autobiographical and is inspired by her experience as a former roller derby player and the empowerment she felt. The mixed media work She incorporates classic car photos taken from car shows as the subjects and how they viewed in pop culture as feminine.

            One motif she uses to explore pop culture is the “Rubik’s Head” series. Olivia has been using the rubik’s cube to explore common archetypes and characters that are often presented in pop culture. Impact, inspired by boxing in media, emphasizes different forms of action line-work that is often found in comics and manga using the paint medium. Femme uses the square spaces to depict different types of female archetypes often found in films, both classic and contemporary.

            Censorship and physical media are another common theme in her work, with the works Condemned and Booty exploring subjects of historic book burnings as a form of censorship and piracy as the solution respectfully. Both also have a focus on the importance of artistic and historic preservation.

            Through creating this body of work, one thing is certain about Olivia. She is a comic artist.