OLIVIA STERLING

Olivia Sterling joined us on the project in September 2021, producing the series Table Salt. Sterling’s colourful comic-style paintings make important commentary on racialised ways of seeing in current society. Imbuing innocent objects such as milk, soap lather and dinner plates with the weight of whiteness, the artist’s paintings call black and white binaries into question. In some of the works, small paint-by-number like letters (B/W/R) denote the colours of subjects. Sterling depicts black and white hands knocking things over, causing spills and creating mess. Colour plays an important role in the nature of the spills, where white spills are easy to clean, red spills, wine or blood, leave a permanent stain. Leaving the question of intention open to the viewer, the artist explores gas-lighting and weaponised ignorance, are these actions purely accidental, or do they hold a more sinister subtext?

Solo exhibitions include Really Rough Scrubbing Brush, CCA Goldsmiths, London, UK (2021); White Bread, Cob Gallery, London, UK (2021); It Clings like a Leech, Guts Gallery, London, UK (2020); A Cure for Nose Bleeds, Marriots Way, Reepham, Norfolk, UK (2020).

Selected Group exhibitions include Universes 4, Gallerie Droste, Paris, France (2021); A Rudimentary Education, Art Lacuna, London, UK (2020); Love your symptom, but not too much, Blank Projects, Cape Town, South Africa, (2020); Without a Painter, Fitzrovia Gallery, London, UK (2020); Snapshot, RCA Hockney Gallery, London, UK (2020); WIP, Sackler, RCA (2018) and Tomorrow: London, White Cube, Online (2020). Residences include the HQI Summer residency, London, UK 2020 and Extended Contexts, National Trust IIam, UK, 2016.