IRENE HARDWICKE OLIVIERI
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...
Irene Hardwicke Olivieri
Video Production Design: Marisela La Grave
Magnetic Laboratorium
Music: Lance Olivieri
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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
2024
Canvas Rebel. Meet Irene Hardwicke Olivieri
Looking and Seeing. Irene Hardwicke Olivieri: Encantada, John O’Hern
Evokation. Irene Hardwicke Olivieri: Honey in the Desert
Honey in the Desert. Irene Hardwicke Olivieri. exhibition catalogue
Art of Penobscot Bay. Carl and David Little. Islandport Press, Yarmouth, ME
2023
The Albuquerque Journal. Irene Hardwicke Olivieri’s Work Combines the Natural World with Magical Realism and a Dusting of Fairy Tales, Kathaleen Roberts
2022
Evokation. Seduction by Centipede. Ashley M. Biggers
Doors of Perception. Irene Hardwicke Olivieri: Rewilding the Heart
Evokation. Artist Spotlight: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri
2021
Maine Arts Journal. Irene Hardwicke Olivieri - A Thousand Wild Creatures
Maine Arts Journal. The Overview Effect. Kathy Weinberg
2018
El Hurgador. Irene Hardwicke Olivieri. Javier Fuentes
2016
PBS. Oregon Art Beat: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri
2015
Mark Murphy Design. Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, A Collection for Zopilote. Mark Murphy
2014
Irene Hardwicke Olivieri: Closer to Wilderness Carl Little. Pomegranate. Portland, OR
Huff Post. A Conversation with Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, Marcia G. Yerman
Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture, Women’s Voices. Leigh Melander and Patricia Reis. New Orleans, LA
2013
Artillery. Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, Betty Ann Brown
Noah Becker’s White Hot Magazine of Contemporary Art. November 2013: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, Megan Abrahams
Visual Art Source. Irene Olivieri. Stacy Davies
2012
Cascade A&E. Irene Hardwicke Olivieri Explores the Boundaries Between Nature & Humanity, Renee Patrick
2010
Irene Hardwicke Olivieri: Some Kind of Wilderness, Jeffrey B. Bergen, Katharine Harmon. ACA Galleries, New York City, NY
2010
Escape Into Life. Irene Hardwicke Olivieri. Gail Leggio
Available Work
Where the cougar sleeps
Honey in the desert
Come collect the cactus fruit, I’ll write the poem
Teporingo and Zacatuche
Memento mori
Archive: Sold
PaleoCat
Flight of the rascals
After the monsoon
When he bites he doesn’t let go
Tomorrow will be beautiful
Supper for the spotted skunk
Tears of the Rio Grande
Snake sleepover
My cousin is a kinkajou
Hibernation
Favorite Neighbors
Papachongo
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
