Olly and Suzi
Biography
(British)
Olly & Suzi are an artist duo whose art-making process is directly coupled with their journey, which they describe as a collaborative, mutual response to nature at its most primitive and wild. Painting together at the same time on the same piece of work, the majority of Olly & Suzi’s art is produced out on location in diverse and remote environments in close proximity to animals, subsequently making the wild their studio.
Often endangered, the animals and the surroundings in which they live are the primary subject of their work. Focusing on representation and symbolism, Olly and Suzi’s aim is to raise awareness and understanding of their subject matter. Sometimes the animal will be presented almost as an icon; singular, primitive and large in relation to the paper, and sometimes a landscape is present and a heard or migration is incorporated into the work. In both cases, the artists strive to create clarity and ambiguity in the same painting; educating and prompting curiosity to equal effect. Often the track, print or bite of an animal may be incorporated into the work in an attempt to document the habitat of a creature that may soon be extinct. The artists see this interaction as form of primal investigation; evidence to an event that will never occur in the same way again. Olly & Suzi continue to travel the globe in the search of preserving the memory and existence of endangered creatures.
Olly & Suzi have been making art together since they met at Central St. Martins School of Art in 1987. Their on-going collaboration was cemented whilst on D.I.P.A Scholarship to Syracuse University in New York State in 1988/89. It was during their early journeys throughout America that they first encountered Native American Indian art and mythology.
Inspired by the underlying respect for nature and animals inherent in indigenous art, they decided to formalise their mission as artists; to make art in response to their own journeys, the wild and Nature. Throughout the early nineties they were represented by the gallerist and dealer Hans Jurgen Muller. They made subsequent shows in Stuttgart, Cologne and a three month exhibit entitled ‘Art Recycling’ over-painting original drawing and prints by artists such as Joseph Beuys, Jim Dine, Emile Nolde, Marcus Lupetz and Jeorg Bazelitz during Documenta 9 in Kassel. Then in 1993, the artists decided to leave the formal confines of their studio and make their work on location in the wild. They have since made over 30 expeditions to remote Arctic, desert, ocean and jungle regions in search of predators and prey and the fragile habitats in which they live. They have also made site-specific performance based work in environments as diverse as the Alaskan interior, The North Pole, African bush, Kalahari desert, Australian outback, the waters of the Galapagos islands, the jungles of Nepal and the Venezuelan Amazon.
Their interactive work is documented by award winning photographer Greg Williamsand and occasionally by George Duffield. Olly and Suzi are represented by Briggs Robinson Gallery, New York, and Eric Franck Fine Art, London. Their work has been exhibited regularly at the Basel Art Fair and Paris Photo and throughout London and New York. In 2001 / 2002 a major year long retrospective of their work entitled ‘Olly & Suzi Untamed’ was staged at The Natural History Museum, London and the artists were subsequently Artists in Residence at the museum for this period of time. A major book of their work entitled; ‘Arctic, desert, Ocean, Jungle’ was published by Harry. N. Abrams in New York in 2003.
In June 2004 Olly & Suzi began an ongoing project entitled ‘African Elements’ in Tanzania’s Selous and Mkomazi reserves, focusing on lesser known regions of the African bush that are under threat. In February 2005 they sailed across the Drake passage to the Antarctic peninsula and dived under the ice to make a documentary film about their work in the wild with Doug Allen, directed by BAFTA award winning director John Purdie. Their work is held in corporate and museum collections such as Goldman Sachs, London, Holland & Holland, London, Hospitalhof Museum, Stuttgart, Landrover, National Gallery of the Cayman Islands, Rolex, Stella Artois and The Natural History Museum, London.