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Overview
"I paint familiar objects-crockery on a dresser shelf, fresh fish on patterned linens-not as passive still lifes, but as celebrations of home and the private theatre of the everyday" - Ollie Tuck.
Olivia (Ollie) Tuck is a Sussex-based still life painter whose work has been exhibited with the Royal Society of Marine Artists, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Society of Women Artists. Her paintings respond to the colour and light she finds in everyday subjects, combining traditional still life themes with a contemporary use of pattern in highly decorative, joyful compositions. Rooted in domestic life, her work treats familiar objects, crockery on a dresser shelf, fresh fish laid on patterned linen, as celebrations of home and the small rituals of the everyday. Her achievements have been recognised with a series of awards, including second place for the Stanley Grimm Memorial Award at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 2022, the RSMA Next Generation Award and the Holly Bush Painter Prize for Best Figurative Painting in 2021. Olivia's journey as a painter began with portraits of friends and family, and took a decisive turn at around seventeen when she started visiting exhibitions. Largely self-taught, she developed her skills through sustained practice and observation, and colour quickly emerged as the defining feature of her work, as it remains today. Her move into still life, and food subjects in particular, came during the lockdowns, when regular trips to local farm shops and fishmongers supplied both her subjects and, frequently, the ingredients for that evening's meal. She discovered that a mackerel on a patterned cloth or a bowl of ripening tomatoes could hold as much visual interest as any grander subject. Working primarily in oils, Olivia values the medium's versatility and the range of surfaces and effects it makes possible. Her aim is to create paintings that draw the viewer in to study the brushwork at close range before stepping back to take in the whole. She finds great satisfaction in the continuous learning her practice demands, and in the moments of breakthrough that move her work forward.
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Works for sale
Ollie Tuck
Kaffe Fasset LobsterOil on Gesso Primed Board23 x 15.5 cms / 9 x 6 inchesSigned 'OT' (lower right)Description
One of the bolder works in the collection, Kaffe Fassett Lobster revels in the very thing that might ordinarily be toned down: competition. Lobster, ground and pattern all vie for attention, creating a painting that feels exuberant without losing its structure. Ollie’s studio holds a drawer that is quite literally spilling with fabric, scraps collected over years for their colour, pattern and possibility. It has become a kind of working archive, and throughout Small Pleasures she repeatedly returns to textiles as a way of testing how far a still life can be pushed. Gingham, florals, checks and high-chroma prints are not treated as backdrops so much as active participants in the composition.
Here, Ollie creates an ode to the textiles of Kaffe Fassett, the celebrated textile and embroidery designer known for his saturated colour and richly patterned designs. Ollie had owned the material for years but had never quite found a way to make it work. That changed as she began experimenting with bringing the background more decisively into focus. “The fabric in this painting has been encouraged to come forward and draws the eye as much as the lobster,” she explains. The challenge, then, was not simply to paint the lobster against a patterned ground, but to hold both in balance. With little tonal contrast to rely on, the image depends on brush texture and carefully placed highlights to describe form. The result is a painting in which subject and setting refuse to fall neatly into a hierarchy. As Ollie puts it, “I love the interplay of pattern with the lobster and how they both compete for attention.”ExhibitionsContact FormSend me more information on Ollie Tuck
