OLIVIA BEENS

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sculptor Olivia Beens lives and works in East Harlem, NYC. She was born in the Netherlands of Dutch and Czech parents and lived in Portugal before coming to the United States as a child. In the 1980’s after receiving a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Hunter College she exhibited Installation and Performance works at Franklin Furnace, AIR Gallery, PS122 and many other venues. She has explored issues of culture, identity, and feminism in her work through the lense of personal experience and is especially interested in the “sacred and profane” in art.

For the past ten to fifteen years clay has been her medium of choice continuing to use an intuitive, subjective, synchronistic approach while allowing events to guide her in the art making process. Human experiences are expressed differently around the world yet we can feel and understand their essence visually. “ Through my hands I connect to that which is outside of me, eventually I discover what I am after: it is rendering human experience. “

She has received many grants and fellowships including a NYSCA grant and fellowships to the Mac Dowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Arts, a Fullbright - Hayes and traveled to Turkey, India and Portugal.

In the 1990’s she received two commissions through Public Art for Public Schools creating mosaic murals. As an Arts Educator she worked for Studio In A School, New York City Department of Education, Brooklyn College and Pratt Institute, Hunter CUNY. In 2014 and 2015 she received a SPARC grant and created a series of relief ceramic panels collaborating with seniors which are permanently installed in the arched windows of the grand auditorium at Sirovich Senior Center.