Octavia Greig

Octavia Greig (b. 2000, London) is an English-American artist raised in London and a recent graduate of the BA Fine Art: Painting program at Camberwell College of Art. After graduating, she relocated her practice to Mexico City in September 2023. For the past six months, she has been living and creating artwork inspired by the streets of Mexico. In April 2024, she will begin her artist residency at Time Square Space in New York City.

Since moving to Mexico City, her artwork has transformed, featuring colorful and enigmatic depictions of its streets, a constant source of inspiration. Her paintings are an observation of the urban landscape and how people navigate the city, streets, and urban spaces. With the camera as a tool to capture the world, her street photography serves as the starting point for her artwork.

From photographs, she creates unique compositions and narratives by digitally collaging her work, which is then physically transferred into drawings, paintings, and layers of intricate photographic collaging. Through this process, she constructs a distinct sense of place, setting, and atmosphere. Her compositions feel simultaneously familiar and transformed, like encountering the same people and streets in an altered reality. Her paintings serve as a visual diary of the people and places she has encountered while navigating her surroundings, capturing fleeting moments of the everyday that are often overlooked amidst life’s bustle.

Predominantly working with oil paint, she incorporates her photographic compositions through detailed collaging on the canvas, further adding an extra layer of complexity to her work. This creates visual confusion through these different textures and mediums. She also enjoys working with found objects and materials she discovers on the streets, with photography, collage, and painting always binding her creations together.


https://octaviagreig.com

Can you describe the core themes and emotions you explore in your current body of work?

The catalyst for my art is the observation and interpretation of urban landscapes, exploring how people navigate and interact within city life and spaces. This is my compass and inspiration, extending beyond mere people-watching into defining who and where we are—alone but connected in streets, as characterized in Baudelaire’s 19th-century concept of the flâneur—observer and urban wanderer (first cited in his essay The Painter of Modern Life). Focusing on street life, my art offers a commentary on the modern world, embodying my personal visual footprint of places I traverse.

In September 2023, I left London for Mexico City to capture its urban vista. For six months, I immersed myself in the vibrantly colored cityscape. I lost myself in the streets and found a vision to discover a vocabulary and language for my art. Mexico’s strong sense of identity—its people, food, architecture, cultural richness, and turbulent history—opened up for me newness and a fresh vision as I found myself captivated by all that unfolded before me.

Portraying everyday city life, from fleeting moments of human connections to the fast pace of its urban beat and street energy, my desire and purpose were to observe through the lens of the flâneur: engaged but also detached, immersed in the cityscape while maintaining a critical objectivity. My painting attempts to offer a uniquely reinvented perspective on urban life, connecting with the complexities of the urban landscape and its living actuality.


How does your creative process unfold from concept to completion?

Observations, curiosity, impulse, and instinct drive my creative process, always centered on my exploration of the urban landscape. With my camera as my primary tool, my street photography is the first foundation stone of my creative process. “To collect photographs is to collect the world,” wrote Susan Sontag in her 1977 essay On Photography. For her, the camera is the primary tool for the modern-day flâneur to capture reportage and actuality. This deeply resonates with me—my street photography is key to capturing with speed and impulsively everyday moments to form the core of my art. My photographs form a comprehensive visual diary of street life in Mexico City and serve as the foundation and core theme for my recent body of artwork. My aim is to capture the essence of city life through its dynamic stories, scenes, vistas, and fleeting moments of individuals against the backdrop of its architecture.

I transform these photographs into unique compositions through digital collaging and editing. People and places merge into curated street scenes, creating a narrative for the viewer to interpret, underpinned by the essence of a specific location and atmosphere. My compositions are then developed into mixed-media oil paintings, layered with intricate photographic collaged elements. This method allows me to create a distinctive sense of place by blending the familiar with an altered reality.


What inspires you most outside of the visual arts, and how does it influence your work?

From the moment I wake, I am inspired by what I see. As a self-proclaimed flâneur, a 21st-century urban wanderer, I am mesmerized by everyday city life. The streets sing to me with the contrasts of movement, people, fashion, architecture, advertisements, colors, and textures. Nothing clashes; everything visually speaks to me. There is beauty in the chaos of individuals and society in all its complexities coming together as one. From the cracks in the pavement to pedestrians, shopkeepers, and dog walkers, all on the move. The stories that unfold as I wander and wonder at the drama of life, the city eternally as a backdrop, always inspiring.


What message or feeling do you hope viewers take away from experiencing your art?

Wonder is what I feel as I see and create, my art serving as a commentary on the world I see. Despite carefully created compositions, the narrative remains open for the viewer to interpret. Crucially, as they bring their own perspective, I want viewers to feel a sense of familiarity with the urban landscape and the people and atmosphere of the city I paint, but also to know this is a new vision, transformed from my initial observation and interpretation. It is as if they too have walked the same streets and witnessed the people and stories unfold. I aim to create a surreal, adjusted yet familiar environment that invites you to experience the urban landscape with a surprising visual twist.


How do you navigate the balance between personal expression and the commercial aspects of your career?

I prioritize creative inspiration over commercial influence in my career. I focus on creating art that inspires and interests me, while also considering the demands of the commercial market. They are not mutually exclusive. After all, the Old Masters centuries ago were aware of the potency of their patrons but were hired because of their individuality, skills, and imagination. Those that merely followed and copied trends never stood out. Great art reinvents the language of art. With social media and consumerist culture, art has never been more showcased. I continually remind myself that my work is driven by a necessity to create with passion, desire, and personal vision, not solely by profit or popularity. I am ambitious for success on my terms.