Essay for  Oliver’s catalogue. China 2008

A Head, a Hill, a Cloud. Oliver’s work is monosyllabic, Scarped, stripped to the bone. The viewer is not given the opportunity to lose herself in contemplating his paintings and drawings because they afford no opportunity for distraction. They are simply the head, the hill, or the cloud and so you Watch them and they Gaze at you and there is nowhere else to escape to. So these are brave images which do not shirk vulnerability.
They are also of course alive, and deal with movement and dynamism and relationship. Sometimes they even seem to present a relationship without even the protagonists who create it. A drawing like Clash evokes soft enshadowed darkness dissolved by a hard shiny bauble of light which shatters in the contact. We do not take sides in this engagement but perhaps note that a Clash can be creative as well as destructive, and when opposites confront each other, out of the fragmentation comes a kind of synergy which is the work of art we are looking at.
The Heads flesh out these more abstract pieces, but we are part of the relationship here, feeling the scrutiny of the Gaze, the bereavement of the Parting and thrusting our own hand at the Outsider and pushing him away. Shall we pause and talk to the Stranger or just pass him by? The Heads do not prompt us to these responses because they do not have faces. But their lack of expression makes them serene, and their smooth round shapes are strangely comfortable, like polished pebbles, and they reassure us that they will outlive our reactions to them.
As with title and composition so with colour. Primeval black and white may unexpectedly sizzle and explode with a crop of colour. Look at the yellow encroachment in Spring as the coil of deadwood seems to be blown away above like so much tumbleweed, and the flash of bronze across the shoulders in Parting warming up this ghostly figure with a shaft of light. Just the sheer beauty of the shimmering eggshell blue in Scarp making the whiteness extra icy and the terracotta warm to the eye.
And texture. I’m writing this in Oxford and am remembering with the aid of images on a computer screen, but I can recall the textures of Oliver’s paintings. Sometimes gritty patinas lurking beneath a layer of slickness, sometimes a metallic sheen which throws the light off the surface. These are not afterthoughts or random decisions but are integral to the life of the painting, enhancing the faces and the landscapes and only to be apprehended looking at the real thing. Lucky you! But texture is achieved in line and form. too, and that I can see. The interplay of strength and weakness in the interaction between the bold stroke and the falling away and Drift of the line, or the dissolution of forms where the Cloud becomes rain and where a head apparently dissolves into thoughts.

Only be willing to search for poetry, and there will be poetry:
My soul, a tiny speck, is my tutor.
Evening sun and fragrant grass are common things,
But, with understanding, they can become glorious verse
                                                                
Yuan Mei hints here at the fragile ‘speck’ of the soul, the touchstone of creativity which transforms the ordinary into the sublime. Oliver’s work understands the delicacy of this process and gently suggests the world through the simplicity of the Mountain, the Copse and the Cloud and, through his faceless figures, our place within it. He does not transform. but points the viewer towards the possibility of transformation.

Dr. Catherine Oakes: Oxford University, Director of Studies, History of Art. OUDCE
Oxford. May 2008

 
关于奥利文

        人的头像，山丘，云朵，这些元素在奥利文的画中，被简化到极致，如同多个单音音阶，循序排列。对于他的画，观者不会在欣赏时不得要领，因为它们根本一点也不复杂，就是简单的头，山和云，你看着它们，它们也瞪着你，无路可逃，退无可退。就这一点而言，它们真可谓勇敢的图像，对于攻击毫不回避。
        它们当然也是生动的，运动着的，充满活力的，并且相互之间维系着某种关系，这使得它们的创造者，本应是主导一切的艺术家，反而像个路人。在“冲突”这副画中，坚硬的白色发光物最终击碎了漆黑阴影的柔弱。置身事外的我们，或许，可以从中体会到些什么，一场冲突，毁灭的同时也在创造，对立的双方终将会在相互的碰撞中，相互融合，携手并进。
        虽然“头脑”这个系列的作品显得愈加的抽象，但是却并没有越过我们的知觉范畴，我们仍然能够感受到“凝视”中所表达出来的仔细的审慎，“分开”中的丧亲之痛，以及“局外人”中那只大力推开他的手多像是我们自己啊。在经过“陌生人”的身边时，我们会停来下和他说话吗？还是就这样擦肩而过？从这组作品中我们得不到任何的回音，因为这些“头脑”都没有五官面容。尽管如此，他们表情的缺失却使他们显得更为安详，那滚圆的脑袋叫人异常的舒服，像磨光的鹅卵石般，使人相信他们会一直在那里等候我们的回应。
        借助主题，构思以及色调的搭配，原始的黑与白出人意料的和很多颜色都碰撞出了火花。“春天”中黄色占据的部分看起来就像是被风卷起的枯枝，好像那种戈壁特有的风滚草一样，干旱时会从土里将根收起来，团成一团随风四处滚动。“分开”中，那可怜人肩膀上的一抹褐色是他仅有的一丝光明和暖意。“陡坎”中，泛出柔和微光的蛋青色，富有一种纯粹的美感，衬托得白色格外的冰冷而赤褐色则分外温暖。
        还有，质感。我现在在牛津大学，写着这篇文字，电脑屏幕上的显示则帮助我去回忆那些图像，但是，关于他作品的质感，我很容易就能够回想起来。有时是一层粗砂质的铜绿色，而有时又闪烁着金属质地的光泽。这些既不是来自于深思熟虑，也不是随机的决定，而是艺术家在创作过程中，自然而然的表现，通过加强面部和风景，竟能使人身临其境，真是幸运！质感也存在于线条和表现形式中，像我看到的那样，线条“漂泊”在粗细，浓淡，强弱之间，相互配合，交相辉映，此外，“云”中的乌云化成了雨，以及一个明显溶化成其思索之物的人的脑袋，都以对一种形式的消解加强了画面的整体质感。

但肯寻诗便有诗，
灵犀一点是吾师。
夕阳芳草寻常物，
解用都为绝妙词。

        袁枚认为看似平常的画面，如果用独特的目光去审视，就能读出全新的意境，那便是“灵犀一点”。奥利文显然深谙此道，他的作品含蓄地呈现出我们居住着的这个世界，无论是“山脉”，“灌木丛”，“云”，或是那些无面容的人物，都被处理的简单明了，直接而朴素。他并没有亲自为他画中的这些元素赋予特别的涵义，但是，观者却从中看到了无限的可能性。

凯瑟琳?奥克斯博士
牛津大学继续教育学院艺术史研究部主任
写于2008年5月，英国牛津

作者：jinsegallery