Olivia Van Oot

Olivia Van Oot (b. 2002, Rhode Island) is a woodworker based in Portland, Maine. She graduated from Maine College of Art & Design earning her Bachelors in Fine Arts in May, 2024. She is a 2024 Windgate-Lamar fellow and co-owns Collated Craft, a small woodworking studio focused on custom furniture.

Her artwork is a re-contextualization of the historical connotations of American Pieced Quilt patterns. Making the recognizable patterns in a new material she addresses historically gendered craft practices. Visually the work evokes feelings of comfort, safety and home. Van Oot’s work is driven by this research and utilizes an obsessive process using wood veneers and parquetry techniques to create complex works such as furniture, cabinets, and objects..

Olivia’s work was featured in ‘Interior / Exterior,’ on view November 9-December 1, 2024.

Join us for an Artist Talk with Olivia on Saturday, November 23 at 4:30 pm on Instagram Live at @seesawart_ to learn more about the works on view, see Olivia’s studio, and what’s next for her.

“Constructing cabinets that mimic spaces I am exploring what makes a home and what makes a space one that feels “safe”. This work dives into the ideas of constructing a house as a masculine ideal and “making home” as feminine.

Including things that are important to me and decorating the interior of these cabinets turned them into dollhouses that serve as a memorial of the things important in my life at this point in time. The doll house scale of the work makes it seem childlike while acting as a way to grapple with coming into adulthood as a young woman today.

Quilts, shoes kicked off by the door, and paper machinery all serve to represent and capture separate aspects of identity. The transformation of self as you move through spaces represented by objects. The spaces created are reflective of the character of self that lives within them. Constructing this miniature version of a home is a process that has happened simultaneously alongside settling into the home I actually fit inside of. It is a home reflective of my current dreams and my current life.”