DAMASK by Lovie Olivia

Art League Houston (ALH) is excited to present DaMask, an exhibition of new work by Houston-based artist Lovie Olivia. The exhibition features a series of large scale paintings that depict intricate and multi-layered portraits of African American women, exploring the stigmas and entanglements associated with minority women, living with mental health disorders. The strong and the vulnerable, the beautiful and the harrowing, the overt and the mysterious; DaMask examines the simultaneous embodiments of minority women who struggle with mental health challenges. Using a modified plaster fresco technique, where pigments and ornamental design are applied to wet plaster and the surface of the work is elaborately carved into and layered upon; the paintings become a physical manifestation of what it means to mask one’s identity.