Earrings, Stud, in Silver or Bronze – Myrtle Leaf

Jewellery Artist, Mixed Media, Photography

Olivia Hickey has been fortunate to have spent much of her life in natural environments exploring the nooks and crannies of wilderness areas around the world. Natural places have been the driving passion of her life and have constantly filled her with wonder and inspiration. She doesn’t interact with natural places in order to conquer them; rather she journeys to know the land more intimately. She is drawn to the places that lie beyond where the roads end; deep within the forests, on the mountains where the earth touches the sky and on the edges where the land meets the ocean. These are the places that are sacred for her and in turn, naturally, are the spaces that she responds to with her art.

Olivia is enthralled by the hidden details within the land and finds herself captivated by the complexity and the beauty in the small. She collects natural treasures mindfully, molds them in place and transmutes them into silver, gold and bronze. This process ensures that minimal traces of her passing occurs and highlights the magic in the hidden details. It encodes a moment of time where the permanency of metal contrasts with the impermanence of place.

The process of making requires her to visit places time and time again as she develops her way of working and responding to the land. Every time she visits she finds herself connecting deeper through discovering new aspects of place and developing her artistic voice through each discovery. Much of her work has been created through casting, a technique that transmutes natural elements to metal through fire.

Olivia strives to capture the intangible moments. She creates talismans that connect people to the ephemeral elements of place and when placed on the landscape on the body, they are in turn a tangible reminder of the place from where they came.

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