Olivia Kristina Bell
Self Portrait in Studio
Silver Gelatin Print
8x10 inches
2024
​
Olivia Bell (2002), born in Austin, Texas, with a BFA in painting and printmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA 2025). Bell creates paintings that explore non-hierarchical systems of memory in reimagined landscapes, inspired by the intensity of heat. She has recently exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions in Baltimore, Maryland, and the 72nd Annual Keisho Exhibition at the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art in Aichi, Japan.​
Creating paintings as a response to anxieties around loss, grief, and environmental instability, I embrace the flux of time. My subjects—whether landscapes, objects, or figures—are fragments of a larger whole, woven together into a constellation. I embrace my mind's tangled, dissociative nature: how one thread conjures a million others, mapping a web of sensation rather than a single narrative.The intensity of the climate I grew up in imbues each scene with a specificity of place that mirrors my recollections. The oppressive heat of the Texas sun sharpens, burns, and heightens, casting a lethargic weight over everything it touches. Figures merge with their surroundings, shaped by the sun’s presence. The layering of many subjects creates a haze that reflects both the passage of time and the crowded nature of memory. Moments of leisure are washed with a quiet nihilism as the atmosphere thickens.
The shadow from a branch cast on a leg.
The low hum of a wasp.
The condensation of a bottle.
The smell while we waded through the creek.
These moments are no longer sequential; they coalesce. My paintings map a kind of in-betweenness, where memory slips and reassembles, and time softens and folds.
EDUCATION
​
2025 BFA Summa Cum Laude, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Painting and Printmaking Baltimore, MD
2024 Paris College of Art, Painting, Paris, FR
2024 Undergraduate Residency, New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
2021 Fine Arts Honors Diploma, McCallum Fine Arts Academy, Austin, TX
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
​
2025
spills from the milieu, Gateway 2 Gallery, Baltimore MD
​
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
​
2025
Never Still, Maryland Institute College of Art, Main Building 330, Baltimore, MD
Keisho Exhibition, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan
Double Time, 15/15 Gallery, Baltimore, MD
Spatial Awareness, Fox 2 Gallery
​
2024
Impromptu, Lazarus, Baltimore, MD
Senior Thesis Highlights, Lazarus, Baltimore, MD
Printmaking exhibition, Fox 2 Gallery, Baltimore, MD
Technical Touch, 111 Franklin Street, New York, NY
Juried Printmaking Exhibition, Fox Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2023
Artist Sketchbook Exhibition, Brown Center (Falvey Hall), Baltimore, MD
Juried Undergraduate Exhibition, Decker Gallery, Baltimore, MD
Fresh Paint, MICA Lazarus Building, Baltimore, MD
102 Degrees, MICA Main Building, Baltimore, MD
​
2022
Make, Do, MICA Main Building Atrium, Baltimore, MD
​
2021
Accessing Accessibility, Fox Gallery, Baltimore, MD
MICA First Year Experience Exhibition, Baltimore MD
​
COLLECTIONS
​
2025
"Never Still" in the Dolphin Press Archive, Baltimore, MD
​
​
INTERNSHIPS
​
2023
Gallery Director Assistant, Women and Their Work, Austin, TX
​
AWARDS
​
2021-2025 MICA Dean’s List
2024 Summer Undergraduate Residency Academy Scholar Award, NYAA
2024 MICA Painting Department Recognition Award
2023 MICA Painting Department Recognition Award
2022 Harriet '67 and Philip E. Klein Scholarship
2022 Foundation Departmental Recognition Award
2021 MICA Creative Achievement Award
2021 MICA Visionary Scholarship
2021 MICA grant