#artistinterviews

ARTIST INTERVIEW: VICTORIA OLT

-Tell us about yourself and your art specialties.

Hi! I’m Victoria Olt I’m a painter, mostly watercolor but I love to experiment with other mediums.

-How long have you been an artist and how did you get started?

I first picked up a brush when I was 14. Most of my fans don’t know this but at that time I was really involved in the nail art world. I had a mildly popular nail art blog that I kept for about 3 years, and doing miniature paintings on my nails is how I learned the basics I use until this day. I got involved in this when I was 14 and I moved to Spain. As a result of not being able to speak the language I had a really hard time making friends and the only time anyone would talk to me was when they complimented my nails. Encouraged by that I started painting them with more and more detail. Until one day when I burned one of my fingers on the hand I always showed on my blog with a hair iron and couldn’t post nice pictures of my hand anymore. That’s when I first started to paint on more traditional surfaces. And I’ve been painting ever since. I also studied Visual Arts in university.

-How would you describe your art style?

I would call my style pop abstract. I combine realistic melancholic portraits with elements of colourful abstraction. The realistic symbolises the parts of our life that we can control and the abstraction is everything we can’t. And the union of those two is just life.

I paint sadness because I consider it a fundamental part of every being and I feel it doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. We think that whenever we feel down we are somehow worse than everyone else. But everyone is sad every now and then, it’s just an unavoidable part of life and we should accept it as such and stop all the struggling.

-Are you working on any art projects right now? What should we expect next from you?

I’m trying to get into making videos of my artwork I’ve always wanted to experiment with making mini movies of my paining process. You can watch me try on my youtube channel.

-What/who inspires you to create your artwork?

Usually I just sit behind my desk and let the brush dance on the paper and see what comes out.

I don’t really have a rational method for painting. Also I don’t wait around for inspiration to strike. You can’t run out of ideas when always have 5 unfinished paintings.

But when I do feel uninspired I go to an arts and crafts store and pick up something new and strange and challenge myself to make art with it. It’s a great exercise to get the creative juices flowing and that way I’m always learning new things.

-What’s your favorite accessory or tool you use in your art making process?

I know I should name some tool I use in the actual making of my work but I can’t help but preach about my bluetooth headphones. Everyone who paints while listening to the music knows the struggle of headphones with a cord. It gets stuck behind an ink bottle and you spill the whole thing, it falls in the wet paint in your pallet etc. They are such a drag. Bluetooth headphones are a must for me.

-Do you use Photoshop or anything like that in your workflow? How does it help?

I use it to make the print files of my paintings. Just brightening the whites and darkening the blacks so the scan actually looks like my painting, nothing too exciting.

-What advice do you have for somebody who wants to get started in the arts?

Oh wow where do I start. Most beginners who want to make a living out of art already know that they must practice a lot and develop a good body of work.

But a lot of artist are dreamers and the biggest mistake they make is learning nothing about how art works as a business. For some reason artists think that making money makes you less pure as an artist. I find that rather childish, that’s also how dealers and clients rip you off, if you don’t value your time and effort why should anyone else?

Also in the age of social media it’s a sin to not have a page dedicated to your work. People can’t admire your art if they don’t know it exists.

-What would you like to be doing in art 5 years from now?

I don’t really have my life planned out that far in advance, it has changed so much in the last two years I can’t really imagine what it would be like in 5. I’d like be doing what I do now but better.

-Tell us a little bit about yourself outside of your art. What other hobbies or careers are you working on?

I’m a huge book nerd I read an average of two books per week. I’m always listening to an audiobook when I paint, and so the more I paint the more I read. I’m also a tea fanatic, My life is all tea, books and art.

-Where can we find your work? Any websites or social media we can check out?

Of course! I’m on pretty much al social media sites. My favourites are:

https://victoriaolt.com/

Instagram

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https://voyagela.com/2024/06/13/podcast-creativity-entrepreneurship/