Author: Fabrizzio Morales-Angulo
Olivia Bee: Enveloped in a dream. Bernal Espacio Gallery, Madrid.
We all have memories, all adults experience adolescence, and almost everyone has pictures from that period. Images that take us back to past times of solitude or in the company of those who were special during those years. Images that make us remember friendships already forgotten and sensations that were unique and marvelous in that moment.
Olivia Bee makes all these moments of her life remain frozen in images that she has captured, and after having been developed, become something else. Olivia aims to let us in some way share in these moments with her through her photos. During a few seconds we are there with her, we are young again and we run through the snow with her. We accompany her while she looks through the window, or simply while she photographs herself in an old printed armchair. Her photographry make us re-live our memories while we wanting to be part of her own.
A diary in snapshots, composed by mini stories from one photograph that stimulate our imagination and make us look in a nostalgic way to our lost youth, the one that could have been, the one that really was, and the one we wanted.
Her recent past becomes oniric in our eyes. This photographer is like the tiger cub hunting by instinct, with roughness and without any consideration. Her way is like a need: it feeds from the innocent instants of her life and that of her friends.
Olivia is alarmingly young and belongs to a new generation that has been raised, educated, fed, and well-informed by images and videos. Their experiences are immediate, the information is shared worldwide, the distances are virtual, and the whole world can be reached with one click. It is a new era where social media dominates our lives, where the need to catch the moment is more important than to live it, and there exists an even bigger need to share it. It is a pleasure to be able to take a step away from one's own life, without thinking, to rest and look back through the images of someone else´s life, this time that of Olivia Bee.
Fabrizzio Morales: You started to photograph very young, you knew what you loved. Did your parents supported your talent and your passion?
Olivia Bee: My parents have always been incredibly supportive. They always gave me everything that they possibly could. They kind of just let me do my thing but told me when I screwed up. I'm very lucky. My family is amazing.
FM: How important is people's support for you and your work?
OB: I am pretty faithful to myself in terms of art (most of the time). I know how to push myself and am pretty level-headed, but at the same time know that I am capable and that I can and will achieve my dreams (at least I hope!!). I think I would be fine without support because I definitely support myself and am very stubborn, but support definitely helps me a lot. I'm very lucky to have friends and family that love and believe in me and a boyfriend who is the same. I am very blessed.
FM: In your own photographs, you capture beautiful and very intimate moments of you and your friends' life, how do you know when to stop and change from protagonist to an external watcher of your own experiences and photograph them?
OB: This is something I am working on, internally. Knowing when to snap and when to put it down. I don't want to use the camera as protection.
FM: Analog or digital; developing or computer editing; dark room or photoshop - what are your preferences?
OB: I love both. Each comes with its own advantages.
FM: This is the first exhibition in which your pictures will be on sale, and some have already been sold before its opening - how are you finding this new experience?
OB: It's not my first! I had an exhibition in New York this summer called "Kids In Love" that I sold a lot of pieces at too! But it is amazing. But it's also weird to sell pieces that are so close to my heart -- but at the same time I want to be able to share them with other people.
Enlaces de interés:
- Olivia Bee: "Enveloped in a Dream", Bernal Espacio - - Alejandra de Argos -
