Kathie Olivas’ art is equal parts creepy and cute, balancing a line between the obscene and the beautiful. Much like her contemporaries Liz McGrath and Scott Radke, Olivas takes traditional imagery and twists it just enough to make the audience wonder whether the subject is a child, an alien, or a corpse.

What attracted you to painting creepy children? I know personally, children are the one thing in movies that scare the crap out of me. But why did you make it your focus point?
That would be the “cuteness” factor”–if something is cute we perceive it to be innocent, not capable of having evil thoughts or any sort of hidden agenda. We take comfort in this ideology. That’s why the typical scary movies with child villains are so scary–they take us out of our comfort zone. It’s all about children representing a starting point, where things begin and what influences us to become who we are as adults–I think it also might subconsciously be a twisted version of maternal instinct kicking in on my part.

Describe Misery Children. It’s a pretty massive body of work. How big do you plan on making it?
The series is based on the alter ego; because children are deemed innocent they would be able to get away with just about anything. If we as adults had no fears, what would we do? They’re also based in an environment in which there are no adults; if they were the only survivors in a post apocalyptic world, how would they adapt? The idea of building one’s own de fence mechanisms is a common theme among the series. I’m not sure how far it will go; there are several characters I keep exploring–they haven’t finished what they have to say quite yet.

Can you give me a brief history of your life and how you got into art?
Typical childhood. I’ve always been very creative; I’ve always been obsessed with making/ inventing new things, often out of old things I would find around my house. I was never really interested in new toys as a child– I was very much into “modification.” I liked taking things apart– not so much destructive as deconstructive. I’ve always had a strange curiosity of how things function.Went to school at the University of South Florida for visual arts. During my last year in college I started running a gallery and curating exhibitions; I quickly began networking and showing my own work.

Is art your career, or do you have a day job?
I’ve been exhibiting quite a bit in the past year, to the point that it has become a second full time job; I’m hoping this path will become the only “job” within the next year. Right now, though, I work a day job as a digital background painter in the animation industry.

When did you first start to define your own style? Did you have a formal education?
Actually the work I’m doing now is more similar to what I was doing before college. I went to the USF to study visual arts. My work throughout my time there became very conceptual and in my mind very distant. After I graduated I started to abandon the academic ideals of what art should be and just started painting again. I still go back to many of the concepts and subject matter; I’ve just tried to focus my work on a more accessible level to appealing to a broader audience.

What do you look to for inspiration?
I try not to look at other artists for inspiration; I know it’s impossible to live in a vacuum but it’s so hard not to be derivative because there are so many other artists out there expressing the same ideas. I find myself being really inspired by independent films and certain music right now. As far as bands, I’ve been obsessing over Interpol’s really ambiguous lyrics, almost like dadaist poetry. Also politics tend to play a big role in my narratives.

What do you think of the low-brow/pop surrealism movement that is brewing around the country?
I’m still trying to figure it out. I came from a very “high brow” education; I had actually never even heard of Juxtapoz Magazine until I met my husband (six years ago). I don’t really understand how certain artists are classified under the movement. I do think that it is shifting to the mainstream of what is now acceptable under museum standards as “high art.” Postmodernism in it’s current state is becoming stale; it’s beginning to lose it’s edge; there will always be new movements to question the validity of what defines our time in history as artists. I really believe that that is what is happening now. So called “low-brow” artists with their strong focus on a visual aesthetic are starting to fill that gap where the very concept heavy “high-brow” has disconnected from everyday people as a whole.

Do you consider yourself part of it?
I’m not sure yet. I’ve only been showing in what are defined as “low-brow” galleries for a couple of years. I think my work tends to cross over. I also think the movement tends to be based on the West Coast, which leaves me at a disadvantage.

What artists currently move you?
An eclectic mix: Jim Houser, Camille Rose Garcia, Joel Peter Witkin, Liz McGrath, Matthew Barney, Kara Walker, Lesley Dill, Maurizio Cattelan, Barry McGee, the late Margaret Kilgallen, Paul McCarthy, Michael Ray Charles, Kiki Smith, Louise Bourgeois, the Art Guys, my husband, Brandt Peters, the list could go on forever.

Talk about the show at Orbit Gallery. How did it come to be?
I’ve been showing for a couple of years with the gallery and we’ve been discussing the show for the past year. The series works much stronger on a conceptual level when they’re displayed as a large group, much like a wall of family portraits.

When someone buys your painting, do you ever long for it back, miss it, or wonder how it is? Kind of like your own child.
No, not really. I rarely have an attachment (so much for being maternal). I think the emotional connection I have is actually in the action of painting, not so much the end material object. I really enjoy other people having them. Seeing one of my pieces in someone else’s home is always very exciting for me. I also document every painting I do, so it’s very easy to look back and see the pieces again.

What came first the sculpture or the art, and how did you originally transition between the two?
I had been doing a large mix of site specific installation and sculpted works before I started this series of paintings. I started doing the sculpted pieces a year ago when I was invited to a show based on hand made toys. I’ve always really enjoyed the hands on appeal of sculpting so it was a natural transition back into 3D.

Of the two, which do you prefer to create and why?
I go back and forth. The sculptures are very time consuming and physically very hard on my hands, so it’s not something I can do everyday. They’re also a little more spontaneous, I start with a piece of clay rather than a sketch I can literally paint on. The benefits of painting are more of an instant gratification, I can see where it’s going every step of the process and it tends to be more forgiving.

Do you consider your prints art, or just mass-produced posters?
Well the prints I do are limited to very small editions, so they’re really not mass produced in the sense that an offset poster is. I’ve always been on the fence on whether I consider them fine art. They serve as a visual representation of something I’ve already created; but they also allow my work to be more accessible to a broader audience; not everyone can afford an original.

Your first Circus Punk is coming out soon. How did you get involved with Paul and the crew?
I was a fan of the punk project and simply contacted them about how my work would fit in. From there I just submitted a design and they ran with it.

What does the future hold for Kathie Olivas?
I can only sit back and wait.

To view all of the work from “The Scavengers” click here>>>