IRENE HARDWICKE OLIVIERI
Bringer of Plenty
August 30 - September 21, 2024
About Irene Hardwicke Olivieri
An ongoing theme in my work is rewilding the heart, to inspire deeper connections to wild animals and wild lands. Many of my paintings are about love, obsessions; parts of life which are often subterranean.
After growing up in south Texas, living in Latin America, travelling down the Amazon River, I lived and studied art in central Mexico. I moved to Austin Texas, painting and singing in an all girl punk band, eventually moving to New York for graduate school, working in the medieval gardens of The Cloisters and drawing neotropical palms for a botanist at The New York Botanical Garden. Growing insects in my apartments, painting forests on the walls, I began feeling an intense longing to live closer to nature. I ended up in northwestern Connecticut where I grew moss gardens, created ponds of waterlilies and lotus hanging cages of caterpillars and moths...
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My husband and I moved to central Oregon and lived in a solar powered off grid home, closer to nature in a more ancient, vulnerable way. While living in Oregon I became active in efforts to help wildlife, speaking out for protection of mountain lions and wolves. I was one of the founders of an organization dedicated to stopping animal trapping. In 2016, we moved to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona where I spent a year exploring and learning about the wildlife of the desert. While there I connected with the Northern Jaguar Project and began donating artwork to help the Sonoran jaguar population. In 2017, we moved to a lighthouse keepers cottage in Maine, kayaked with seals and lion’s mane jellyfish and in 2019 moved to Mount Desert Island, where I worked at Acadia Wildlife Center helping rehabilitate injured wild animals.
I grew up at the mouth of the Rio Grande River in south Texas and after taking some tributaries over the years I’ve moved upstream from my childhood home. I now live near the Rio Grande River in beautiful New Mexico.
Selected Awards and Honors
Coming soon!
Selected Collections
Coming soon!
Education
1985 New York University, New York, NY, MA
1983 University of Texas, Austin, TX, BFA
1978 Insituto Allende, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
1977 Escola des Artes Visuais, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Albuquerque Journal, 2023
https://www.abqjournal.com/2564399/irene-hardwicke-olivieris-work-combines-the-natural-world-with-magical.html
2021 – Weinberg, Kathy: The Overview Effect, The Maine Journal of Art;
Hardwicke Olivieri , Irene: A Thousand Wild Creatures, The Maine Journal of Art
2019 – Tobey, Ali, Maine Campus News September 2019
Maine Home + Design / Artists Directory Issue 2019
2018 – The Hopper Magazine Fall 2018
2015 – Dluzen, Robin Art Ltd Magazine Summer 2015
Murphy, Mark Scribble 08 Irene Hardwicke Olivieri: A Collection for Zopilote
2014 – Amons, Susan Spring: The Journal of Archetype and Culture Volume 91
Orion Magazine
Alibabaie, Sarah, Portland Book Review
Naimzadeh, Jennifer, Library Journal
Jasper, David – The Bend Bulletin
Combustus Magazine
Orion Magazine, Summer/Fall
Flycatcher Journal
Kenoyer, Kelly, Envision Environmental Journalism
Yerman, Marcia, Huffington Post
Sheffey, Leigh, The Daily Emerald
Bjornstad, Randi, Art in Every Detail, Eugene Register-Guard
2013 – Abrahams, Megan, Whitehot Magazine
Brown, Betty Ann, Artillery Magazine
Reykjavik Boulevard
Murphy, Mark, Scribble 08, Summer 2013
Shub, Valerie, FAPT305
Davies, Stacy, Visual Art Source
Bush, Bill, Huffington Post: This Art Week LA
Murphy, Mark, Breakfast in the Forest by Irene Hardwicke Olivieri
2012 – Patrick, Renee – Cascade Arts & Entertainment
2010 – Molarsky, Mona, Artnews, Summer 2010
Hattam, Meredith, Visual Arts: A Pop Surrealist Dream at Survey Select
KPBS San Diego, July 14, 2010
2009 Pierce, Eleanor, Complex Imagery, Bend Bulletin, October 30, 2009
RGV Magazine, September
Art for Obama, edited by Shepard Fairey and Jennifer Gross
2007 – Little, Carl, Art in America, April 2007
Leggio, Gail, A Reviving Iconography: Christina Verago and Irene Hardwicke Olivieri,
American Art Quarterly, Winter 2007
2006 – Oxford American, Spring 2006
May, Caryn, What the Owl Left Behind: Off the Grid with Irene Hardwicke Olivieri,
The Source Weekly, Oct 5 2006
Turner, Billye, Animal Affairs, Spring 2006
2005 – Burger, Phillip. TimeOut Chicago, Issue #17 June 23, 2005
Camper, Fred, The Chicago Reader, July 1, 2005
Lieber, Katherine Rook, Artscope.net, July 29, 2005
2004 – Streitfeld, L.P. , The Advocate/Greenwich Times, May 2, 2004
Larcen, Donna, The Hartford Courant, March 25, 2004
Banach, Kari, The Herald Press, March 28, 2004
2003 – Myers, Holly, The Los Angeles Times, December 5, 2003
Venice Magazine, November 2003
2002 – The Week Magazine, New York, NY, April 19-25
Zimmer, William, The New York Times, August 11, 2002
2001 – Kino, Carol, Art in America, January 2001
Costa, Robert – Cover
2000 – Schwabsky, Barry, Art & Text, November 2000-January 2001
The Book Los Angeles, Summer 2000
Goddard, Dan, The San Antonio Express News, August 19
1998 – Cotter, Holland, The New York Times, March 13 and 20
Connally, Kevin, The New Yorker, February 16
Scobie, Ilka New York Arts Magazine, March
Bergen, Mica Cover magazine, Spring
1996 – Chamberlain, Francis, The New York Times
Glowen Ron, The Herald, (Seattle, WA) July
Melrod, George, Art and Antiques, April
Pagel, David, The Los Angeles Times, March 30
Clark, Catherine, Juxtapoz, April
Available Work
Memento mori
Archive: Sold
Call from the Desert
Ravenous
Studio in the saguaro
Odd Pets
Embrace
Undercurrents
Before going in
Agave Girl
Friend in need
Petting you, petting everyone in the forest
The Ranger
See what I mean about you
Forest floor
Picnic for the roadrunners
Four braids and a squirrel
The Cactus Vendor
Your touch, a thousand wild creatures
