Olivia Jeffries' photostream

My creative process is continually influenced by my fascination for used paper. I enthuse about working on a surface that has already been given a sense of purpose in a previous incarnation that has become visibly worn over time. Old letters, books or packaging materials, for example, are salvaged from their original roles and combined with figures, symbols or shapes which have been stripped of their surroundings.

Barely tangible notions are an important aspect of my work. I aim to keep my drawings as simple as possible and try to suggest a larger narrative through the primal and elemental qualities of simple shapes and forms. I use these simple shapes as a communicator for much bigger messages based on my musings around these barely tangible and sometimes overwhelming thoughts. For example, the complex and unknowable nature of reality, an intimate moment which exists for just a second and is then forgotten, spiritual energy, the impossibility of feeling how someone else feels or a moment of wonder, the list is endless.

These relatively valueless materials and simple motifs are brought together to explore the abstract traces of life; to project the vulnerability of love, precariousness of life and inevitability of death which embody the complex and uncertain nature of simply being human.

drawing SHOP: restless things

vintage SHOP: restless general store

BLOG: restless things blog