Summary
Area of emphasis: Low-Res MFA Interdisciplinary Arts
Scott Oliver is a project-based artist whose practice explores our fraught relationship with the built environment through what he calls “poetic repurposing.” His work has taken many forms including architectural replicas, in-home sculptural interventions, a symbiotic restaurant, a collection of discarded LPs, borrowing and modifying other people’s furniture, an elaborate parlor game with students, an audio walking tour of an urban lake and a group of sculptural signposts.
Oliver holds a BFA (1994) in Graphic Design and an MFA (2005) in Wood/Furniture from California College of the Arts. His work has been shown widely in the Bay Area at the deYoung Art Center, San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art, Sonoma State University, Triple Base, Museum of Craft and Folk Art, Oakland Museum of California, Johansson Projects, Southern Exposure, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, Mission 17, Rena Bransten Gallery, and nationally at Grounds for Sculpture (Hamilton, NJ), Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery (Portland, OR), UCLA (Los Angeles, CA), and Sierra Nevada College (Incline Village, NV).
Oliver has received a number of awards and grants for his work including an East Bay Fund for Artists Grant from the East Bay Community Foundation, an Investing in Artists Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, an Individual Artist Project Grant from the City of Oakland and an Alternative Exposure Grant from Southern Exposure. He was an artist in residence at Headlands Center for the Arts in 2009 and at Recology in 2007. Oliver's previous teaching experience includes adjunct faculty appointments at California College of the Arts, UC Berkeley and Sierra Nevada University. He lives and works in Reno, Nevada.
Education
- BFA, Graphic Design, California College of Arts & Crafts, 1994
- MFA, Wood/Furniture, California College of the Arts, 2005