Q&A: An Interview with Laura Olohan

What made you want to be an artist?

When I was young, we lived in a three-storey house in a Welsh seaside town. Without parental permission, I drew a train track all the way from the top of the stairs to the bottom. To find out who the culprit was between me and my three siblings, my mum stood outside our bedroom doors and loudly said, “Wow, I wish I knew who drew this amazing train track!” I fell for the trick and admitted that it was me. This mark-making seems to be one of my earliest artistic ventures, at least in my memory. The train track felt like a journey and a connection between the upstairs and downstairs of our home. It was possibly an attempt to understand space and my place within it. Did this make me want to be an artist? Perhaps not directly; rather, it showed me how important it is to create and express myself through artistic means, and that this can be a necessity rather than a career path. The image of a train track has since appeared in recent work, now standing for loss, for arrival and departure. The domestic environment is also important as a meditation on grief and the spaces that hold it.

What’s the most mundane thing you’ve photographed or screenshotted recently, and why did it catch your attention? 

The ordinary is what inspires many of my paintings. I am constantly on the lookout for something in my everyday surroundings that I feel a connection with—an item left behind, an object or disruption marking the presence of a person, rather than the individual themselves. My aim is to find presence within absence, and I use painting as a way to explore this. I have an archive of these moments. Here is a recent short video I made to illustrate this. I presented this video for a lecture I gave at The University for the Creative Arts, Farnham:

In an era where algorithms curate visibility, do you make work differently knowing it might be consumed in a scroll rather than in a gallery?

While I don’t underestimate the importance and appeal of social media, I would not make work differently to accommodate algorithmic needs. I prefer work that is tangible rather than viewed through a small screen, where the surface, texture, detail, and scale of a painting can be fully understood and experienced. Yet many more people can view my work online, and I can also connect with other creatives. I see it as a tool rather than as my primary drive or inspiration.

What are your favourite materials to use in your practice?

I prefer to work on linen, using Old Holland oil paints with Zest It and linseed oil as my mediums.

What are some of your favourite art stores for supplies in London?

A P Fitzpatrick’s in Bethnal Green is helpful and knowledgeable. Russell & Chapple in WC1 are also very good.

What are your studio crutches, the things that get you through a studio session?

The labour-intensive nature of my work means that many hours of painting are complemented by listening to audiobooks and podcasts. I tend to gravitate towards anything with atmosphere. Robert Macfarlane’s Underland: A Deep Time Journey is not only fascinating but also offers inspiration and insight into my own painting practice.

When someone who doesn’t know you encounters your work for the first time, what do you hope they notice before anything else?

It is difficult to pre-empt a viewer’s response or reaction to a work. My work is not an attempt to illustrate an idea or be didactic. With this in mind, my first hope is that the work can engage a viewer from a distance. Then, if intrigued, they will approach and see the volume of detail involved in its creation. I want my paintings to operate on two visual levels: from afar and up close. Marcel Duchamp said, “The spectator completes the work of art”—I am happy to allow this completion in my absence.

Cover image by Jan Bernet.