All images courtesy of Olivia Kemp
British artist Olivia Kemp (previously) creates sprawling, large-scale ink drawings of real world landscapes that are built from photography, observational sketches, and her own memories of the visited destinations. Her two most recent works took a combined nine months to complete, and are pulled from her travels to Malta and Bavaria. Kemp’s drawing “Ascending The High Pass” is inspired by Bavaria’s castles, and is composed of towers, cliffs, and a winding train line that connects the city through a series of bridges and tunnels.
For her other recent piece, she focused more on the plant life of the location. “Unlike with the castles drawing, ‘Melita, Maleth’ was very much a response to selecting a random location and spending time there getting to know it,” Kemp tells Colossal. “I was interested in going to Malta, but didn’t have any particular drawing or architectural style or composition in mind before I went. I loved the variation of plant life on the island, and felt really strongly that the drawing needed to have a full and rich foreground, including all the flora that had most interested me.”
Kemp will often create smaller drawing studies while on location, which she will then incorporate into her larger works. Both “Ascending The High Pass” and “Melita, Maleth” will be included in the group exhibition Early Modern Matters which opens on September 6 at James Freeman Gallery in London and closes September 29, 2018. You can see more of the artist’s work on Instagram and Twitter.
“Melita, Maleth” in process
“Melita, Maleth”
“Melita, Maleth” in process
“Melita, Maleth” with reference drawings
“Melita, Maleth” in process
Detail of “Ascending The High Pass”
“Ascending The High Pass” in process
“Ascending The High Pass”
“Ascending The High Pass” in process
Olivia drawing “Ascending The High Pass”
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