Rosa Oculus by Olivia Mansfield

About

Rosa Oculus is a body of work which marries Mansfield's intuitive process, experience & passion - founded in visual mystery, nature, lore, faith, journey, change and reflection - with a celebration of the luminosity, bold colour, and form of 18th Century-stained glass. The composition is particularly honorific of Rose Windows found in Churches and Cathedrals, and how they lend themselves to storytelling in religious art. 

Traditionally, each outer circle of a Rose Window portrays a biblical narrative. In this body of work however - one large circular central canvas with 8 orbital bodies - Mansfield sources myth & legend, converging her broad influences:

"I play less with religion and more with conjuring the emotional experience of a wondrous journey, one taken by the viewer alone. The pieces’ titles can help shape this journey. When read consecutively, they fall into the rhythm of a poem:  'A Vision To Rest, To Wake A Crisis, To Burn The Dawn, A Dream To Sleep'. Yet the form allows you to start anywhere, moving in, out, up, down, left or right, journeying through one to reach another.

In this, time is integral. A journey has a beginning and an end. Reading almost like the face of a clock, each painting symbolises a different place in time and space. 'A Vision' atop, heavenly & godlike; 'To Burn' below, flickering with the chaos of Tartarus."

Whilst on this journey, tortured souls, figures and beasts move in and around shards of darkness and light, which fracture the dream-like landscapes. We witness symbols and flickering sigils emerge within the gestural strokes of paint. With intense displays of colour, texture and layer, Mansfield forms visions of somewhere unknown, mystical, transcendent, otherworldly. 

Heavy, foreboding skies, caverns and crevasses, megaliths, ley lines, and ethereal rays of light become these splintered landscapes. Her celestial paintings swirl with the chaotic energy of a great tempest, tailored to leave us feeling as though we're caught in the eye of a heavenly storm - surrounded by the luminescence and harmony of what appears to be creation and destruction combined. 

Based in Milton Keynes, Mansfield studied a Foundation Diploma in Fine Art at Central Saint Martin's before completing her BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University in 2012. She’s had two solo shows, with Ritzy Gallery and The Old Church, and has been part of group shows across the UK and online throughout the past 8 years. Inc. 3 digital exhibitions in 2021, with Vacant, The Holy Art Gallery & London Paint Club.