We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chris Oleary a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chris, thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

When I was a child I remember being very creative and had dreams of fame and fortune and all that good stuff. I just didn’t know how I would obtain these things. I always drew but looking back I thought of it as an average talent like any other kid my age. It wasn’t until the middle of high school that my thoughts on that changed. Fashion magazines became an obsession. I loved the images of the ads and editorials and my drawings started to slowly mature.

Attending FIT in the early 90’s was the turning point for me. I was in a world with other creatives and it was exciting and inspiring. It was settled then, and I knew that I wanted this to be my path. I can still hear one of my instructors telling me “Your’e going to be famous one day!” those words have stuck with me and have been a driving force and one of the reasons why I keep going.

Currently, 30 or so years later, I’m not famous nor do I have anything close to a fortune but this is the road I chose. A very rocky and sometimes very unsuspected road, but here I am, an artist.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Born in the early 70’s, I grew up on Long Island NY, the youngest child of 7 in an Irish Catholic household. My father was a Franciscan Monk before marrying my mother. Needless to say, when I was little and wanted to play with dolls it was not allowed, but just for me considering the body I was born in. My creativity started early, kind of as a rebellion. I started making my own dolls out of shoelaces which gradually turned to me drawing what I saw as powerful images of women. Fashion and music became the staples in what inspired me creatively. At FIT I had dreams of being a designer or photographer. I did spend many years as a hairstylist but always came back to my creation of art.

For many years my work enveloped these portraits of female faces that were almost self portraits. Parts of me that I did not know how to express. they developed over so many years and were always there to teach me to be who I am. They were created to threaten and intimidate my audience because I couldn’t.

It has only been recent that I have taken a step back from this form of therapy. My work now is more whimsical and funny. I feel at this stage of my life I have let myself off the hook. I adore my older work and what they have done for me but enjoying being able to laugh alongside my new work.

My current series of works include a collection called the Wuvwy Model Management collection which are tiny paintings of exaggerated cartoonesque characters and my other is called Trippy Dippy Doodles bringing back a love for drawing which I have not done in years.

I am most proud of not giving up. I saw so many fellow artists friends from school give up what seemed to be something they loved doing because life got in the way.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

NFT’s are something I am still trying to navigate and understand, but I have a feeling that this could be a wave toward the future of art. As I try to keep up with changing technologies I do want to learn more about this and see what kind of evolution this entails.

About a year and a half ago is when I first was introduced to NFT’s. The whole idea seemed stupid to me lol but I went on a platform and uploaded some pieces just to see what happened. That’s when I started to take a look at other artists and especially art collectors who were interested in this new medium. (I don’t really know if this would be considered a medium). A collector did find me and bought a piece which was exciting but I slowly lost interest in that platform.

The beginning of this year, I was doing my usual research to promote my work and came across a platform on instagram called Primitives.xyz. It looked like an online gallery for nft’s and still not knowing if this was the right avenue for my work so I reached out. Very cool people and became very comfortable with the platform so 9 months later I have roughly 45 pieces on their site. I have a bit more knowledge of nft;’s and figured I would jump on the bandwagon. PS If yours’re an artist check them out. :)

I see alot of talk about nft’s and AI generated work and the negatives in regards to them. but I do not think it will replace us hand crafter artisans. It could very well just be the evolution of art in the technological age. Then again… Maybe not but I want to be ready just in case.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

BUSINESSS COURSES!!!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.chrisolearyart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisolearyart/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chrisolearyart