Octavia Milner paints abstract landscapes and makes small sculptures from found materials. In the studio, the starting point for a painting is usually one of her drawings, watercolours or photographs made outside of disintegrating natural and industrial structures and their surroundings.
The work she is showing in this exhibition, however, is a direct response to the diagnosis on 2nd November 2023 and subsequent death on 27th May 2024 of her husband, Jeremy Swain, from a brain tumour. This coincided with a major move from Peckham, London, to Devon.
Feeling a strong need to get into the studio three weeks after Jeremy’s death and having little energy or direction, she used whatever came to hand to make work. This included the packing paper from the house moves, seen in the ‘Date order – After’ series. Squeezing acrylic paint directly from the tube and impatiently using charcoal, pens and pastels sometimes led to tearing of the paper. The torn parts were then collaged onto the next piece of work in the series. Having to trust her previous experience gathered as a painter, Octavia worked fast and instinctively.
In both the sketch books and the ‘After’ series, recording the date when a sketch or painting was made was important. A way of trying to impose some kind of order on a catastrophic time.
Having originally trained as a textile designer and later as a speech and language therapist, Octavia now works full time as an artist from her home and studio in Devon.
Website: Octavia Milner
Instagram: @octaviamilner