olivia elaine lorber
Fine artist based in Milwaukee, WI
Olivia Elaine Lorber is an artist from Baltimore living and working in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She received her BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 2022, where she focussed on narrative figure painting and art history. Olivia has exhibited her paintings at the Miller Art Museum, Walker's Point Center for the Arts, Allen Priebe Gallery, and Var Gallery. In 2023, she concluded her residency with Plum Blossom Initiative’s Bridge Work program and has since continued exploring the combination of painting and drawing mediums. Olivia’s practice exudes themes of memory, emotion, relationships with the natural world, and the surreal. 
painting
Acrylic and oil figure painting is a significant part of my studio practice. The figures I create are often symbolic of personal narratives and memories.
drawing
Graphite drawing is the other half of my studio practice. These small scale works are often where my stories begin, inspiring larger paintings later on.
artist statement
I am a Milwaukee based artist creating figurative and environmental paintings in an otherworldly whimsical style. Using an illustrative painting approach, I create bold narrative scenes filled with color and textures drawn from nature.
My paintings depict figures as characters, emblems, or merely a small facet of a larger habitat. The figures exist in a fanciful biome of flora and fauna symbolic of real-world natural phenomena like the momentous whale-fall or human cognitions. I am influenced by viewing humanity as a species and the intrinsic connection between our emotional behavioral patterns and other beings on this planet, particularly sea life and oceanic ecosystems. I am drawn to the idea of water as the root of all life, emphasized in my work with pearls, shark teeth, kelp, and other aquatic objects that accompany the figures.