Olivia Jia is a painter based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drawing from her extensive and ongoing personal archive of photographs, ephemera, and objects, Jia’s meticulously painted still lifes depict books, manuscripts, and archival spaces as containers of personal narratives and history. “Ultimately a form of self portraiture, my work investigates the confluence of images, objects, and cultural ephemera with personal narratives to picture the psychological space that I inhabit,” she says. “At the core of my practice is a longing for cultural context, and my constant contention with the realities of historical and societal trauma that has ripped such a context away. My paintings attempt to re-carve such a space I can claim.”

Olivia Jia is represented by Workplace, London. See more of her work below!