Phyllis Oliver is an award-winning artist with over thirty years of experience in teaching and painting. She and her husband retired to Bakersfield to be near their grandchildren in 2006. Born in Massachusetts, and a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, she has also lived in Hawaii, California, Washington State and Greece.
In Washington State, she specialized in teaching artistically gifted students, taught volunteers how to teach art and art history in the seven grade schools in Poulsbo Washington, and was on Adjunct Faculty at Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington. She is in collections in Canada, Kuwait, Greece, Australia, and several more European countries as well as in the US.
She considers “visual art” to be a cross cultural language, as line, color, and form appeal directly to the senses and provide a way to experience a moment in time.
Oliver, a Signature member of the Northwest Watercolor Society and an elected member of Women painters of Washington will be showing with Laura Best at the Bakersfield Art Association for the month of December. She has been housebound, as have many, due to COVID-19, and painting has been her refuge. Fall scenes from the east side are featured in the show. As she painted, yellow became the focus of several paintings. As yellow is the color closest to white, it generates feelings of warmth, sunshine, and hope. Thinking about the symbolism that was emerging as she painted. It became clear that although fall is a season of dying back in preparation for hibernation, the guarantee of spring is found in yellow. She prays that the all of us will make it through this period of hibernation to a glorious COVID-19 future. Phyllis can be contacted at (661) 319-1236