{{Short description|Canadian-American abstract painter (born 1943)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=August 2020}} {{Infobox artist | name = Bobbie Oliver | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Roberta Anne Oliver | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1943|06|17}} | birth_place = Windsor, Ontario, Canada | death_date = | death_place = | spouse = Frank Kitchens, married 1993 | field = | training = Centre for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan (1966–1968) and at St. Alban's School of Art, St. Alban's, England (1968) | movement = Abstraction | works = | patrons = | awards = | known_for = abstract painter | elected = }}
'''Roberta Anne Oliver''' (born June 17, 1943) is a Canadian-American abstract painter.
==Biography== alt=Image of abstract painting by Bobbie Oliver|left|thumb|''Untitled'' (2019). Acrylic on canvas, 62" x 80". After moving to New York from London in 1971, she worked for Isamu Noguchi and La Monte Young. In the 1980s she taught painting at Princeton University, the School of Visual Arts, New York, the Banff School of Fine Arts, Canada and The Rhode Island School of Design where she served as a Tenured Professor of Painting and Chair of Painting (1982–1983 and 2006–2008). She also taught at the National College of Art in Lahore, Pakistan and the Rhode Island School of Design in Rome, Italy.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Oliver |first1=Bobbie |title=The American College of Greece – Collection |url=http://www.acgart.gr/ACG-COLLECTION/ARTISTS/O/OliB/OliB-bio.htm |website=www.acgart.gr |publisher=The American College of Greece |access-date=2020-08-19}}</ref>
In the 1980s, she worked almost as a sculptor, building sculpture-like wall reliefs with thick grounds of wax on plywood which she incised with simple geometric forms.{{sfn|Murray|1999|p=156}}
alt=Images of abstract painting by Bobbie Oliver|thumb|''Untitled'' (2019). Acrylic on canvas, 66" x 78". In 1999, her painting looked like water with floating shapes.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Oliver |first1=Bobbie |title=Thumbnail of images |url=http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/artist_work.html?languagePref=en&link_id=1201&artist=Bobbie+Oliver |website=ccca.concordia.ca |publisher=ccca |access-date=2020-08-20}}</ref> From 2005 on her paintings became more expressionistic. They were built up from layers of opaque washes into luminous monochromes of watery depth which suggested movement.{{sfn|Nasgaard|2008|p=269}} One critic suggested that her influences might be the dream-like works of Surrealism but Oliver said, as always, that these works reflected her own hand working with the material.{{sfn|Nasgaard|2008|p=269}} In 2015, a critic said of her show of mostly green paintings at Valentine Gallery in New York that the tonal play and shapes recalled shadows and reflections, or clouds and sheets of rain.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rhodes |first1=David |title=Slow Spilling Movement: The Paintings of Bobbie Oliver |url=https://artcritical.com/2015/10/15/david-rhodes-at-bobbie-oliver/ |website=artcritical.com |publisher=Artcritical, October 15, 2015 |access-date=2020-08-20}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Kalm |first1=James |title=Bobbie Oliver Curated by Mary Ann Monforton at the New VALENTINE |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXoEAVRUMxI |website=www.youtube.com |publisher=jameskalmroughcuts, sep 29, 2015 |access-date=2020-08-19}}</ref> In 2019, a show titled ''Residuals'', of blue paintings created from 2017 to 2019 was shown at High Noon Gallery in New York.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Jordan |first1=Patti |title=Bobbie Oliver: Residuals |url=https://artefuse.com/2019/04/25/bobbie-oliver-residuals-at-high-noon-gallery/ |website=artefuse.com |publisher=Arte Fuse |access-date=2020-08-19}}</ref> They revealed the process by which she made them but viewers and critics persisted in finding images in them.<ref name="twocoatsofpaint " >{{cite web|title=Bobbie Oliver's flood of associations |url=https://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2019/04/bobbie-oliver-spatial-cosmological-resonance.html |website=www.twocoatsofpaint.com |publisher=Two Coats of Paint |access-date=2020-08-20 |date=9 April 2019}}</ref>
She has exhibited in New York at High Noon Gallery, Hionas Gallery, Feature Gallery, Showroom, Valentine Gallery as well as having solo shows in Toronto at the Olga Korper Gallery (her long-term dealer), in Los Angeles at the Jancar Gallery and in Laguna Beach at The George Gallery.<ref name="twocoatsofpaint " />
Oliver lives and works during the winters in New York City and during the summers in a converted church in Rock Valley, New York, which she and her husband, Frank Kitchens, have renovated.<ref>{{cite web |title=Home as a gift from the past |url=https://riverreporter.com/stories/home-as-a-gift-from-the-past,16124 |website=riverreporter.com |publisher=River Reporter, cover story of the first 2019 edition of Our Country Home, March 12, 2019 |access-date=2020-08-20}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}} === Bibliography === *{{cite book|title=Canadian Art in the Twentieth Century|date=1999|publisher=Dundurn|location=Toronto|pages=156–157|last=Murray|first=Joan|oclc=260193722}} *{{cite book |last1=Nasgaard |first1=Roald |title=Abstract Painting in Canada |pages=269|publisher=Douglas & McIntyre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-18mk0_QWjoC |access-date=2020-08-18|year=2008|isbn=9781553653943}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Oliver, Bobbie}} Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:Artists from Windsor, Ontario Category:Painters from Ontario Category:Canadian women painters Category:Canadian abstract painters Category:American abstract painters Category:20th-century Canadian painters Category:20th-century Canadian women artists Category:20th-century women painters