Olivia Mitchell is a contemporary artist whose practice emerges from an intuitive, tactile dialogue with the natural world. Since completing her Master’s in Fine Art, she has drawn inspiration from the landscapes of the Cotswolds and, more recently, from the weathered textures of the Cornish coast. Working predominantly in earthy, monochromatic palettes, she embraces a process-driven approach: layering, scraping back, and reworking materials to reveal subtle, textured surfaces that evoke themes of erosion and the passing of time. 

Her most recent work explores the raw beauty of maritime objects such as chains and anchors found along the British coastline. These forms inform sensory abstractions which reveal visceral, ancient-feeling textures. Bathed in rich tones of ochre, umber, and sienna, her compositions carry a sense of memory. 

The medium of photography has recently become an increasingly important part of Olivia’s creative process for which she has taken an experimental approach often playing with serendipity. She uses the medium as a form of sketching: capturing rusted objects and discovering the effects of time. These images inform her approach to colour, surface, and materiality.