Olivia Irvine creates painted worlds that feel like memories, yet remain fictional. Working through colour, mark-making and the interplay of shapes, imagery emerges from abstract foundations and shifts between the familiar and the imagined. Her paintings often bring together people, objects and fragments of memory in ambiguous, theatrical settings. Working in oil and distemper, she creates surfaces that are both vigorous and delicate, giving the impression that the painted world might dissolve like a dream upon waking.

This painting uses oil- based and water-based paints mixed together in such a way as to create a broken surface, reminiscent of a dream fading on waking. It is unclear whether the man in white is a marble statue or not. He appears in costume and offers a passing woman a drink from a goblet. The action takes place in a formal garden at night. There is a theatrical feel to the painting which could be light-hearted or tragic.

Born in Kilwinning, Scotland, Olivia Irvine studied at Edinburgh College of Art and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, later gaining an MA in European Fine Art from Winchester School of Art in Barcelona. She lives and works in Edinburgh. Recent exhibitions include Figment, a solo show at The Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh (2026), Enclosed Spaces at Linlithgow Burgh Halls (2025) and Frontiers – Painting in Scotland Now at the Royal Scottish Academy (2024). Her awards include a Creative Scotland Open Fund Award and the Blackadder Houston Mid-career Travel Award (2025).