TSU Library Art Gallery
Presents Art 
by 
 Olivia Newman

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Vienna, Austria, Olivia moved with her mother at an early age to Hamburg, Germany after her father was taken to a concentration camp during W.W.II. An only child she grew up in war-torn and post war Hamburg. She did not know that her mother and she were hiding using a fake identity. Early on she loved to paint and, although it was impossible to get hold of white paper at that time, she used brown paper bags or wrapping material to draw on and paint. Later she took classes in order to receive the B.F.A. in Hamburg. Her mother insisted that she obtained a REAL education. So she pursued medicine, got married and had seven children. She never abandoned her art during those years, but she did not practice medicine.

Her mother never told her that they too were Jewish in order to protect her. Olivia used the opportunity to study in Vienna to get more information about her father's fate, but she did not find out, where her father died.

After the sudden death of her husband in 1975, she was left alone with the responsibility for her children, three teen-agers and four little ones; she barely found time to paint. It was her oldest daughter, who, while still in art school, introduced Olivia to silk painting. She fell in love with this unique medium of expression and its versatility, that she painted on silk ever since.

She exhibited her work all over Europe and conducted workshops. She moved to Nashville in 1990, following three children into the U.S.A. She started her own business, creating and selling wearable art, invented her own yam for knitting and showed her framed works as a member of diverse arts organizations, like Nashville Artist Guild, Visual Arts Alliance, Tennessee Art League and Tennessee Association of Crafts Artists.

ARTIST STATEMENT

In my opinion there are no guidelines for art. My silks are means of communication, aiming to replace words. I adore everything that speaks with large embracing movements of colors. In my case, intuition is everything, it is the most important consideration. I really can not plan my works. Sometimes I set out to create paintings with more preparation and more distance. The results simply do not work. I can only trust my inspiration and love for colors. I imagine my paintings as well as my wearable art to bring happiness by creating the materials by hand and making them also pleasing for the eye and the skin. I have been painting all my life, started to paint on silk only in 1985 after my daughter introduced me to silk painting after coming back from France where she was on a field trip while still in art school. Starting out with wearable art I fell in love with this medium and have painted on silk ever since. I showed and sold my work all over Europe and later in the USA where I moved to from Germany in 1990. I became a member of the Nashville Artist Guild right away.


Just another Day
Awakening
Lost dreams
Butterflies

Masks
Centerpoint
The Kiss
Summertime

Metamorphosis
Shadowland
Magic Nightmare
Hope

How to paint on Silk
Composition
Beyond the Horizon
Bridgers to Tomorrow

Haunting Memory
Despair
Wiseman
Transcendence