Irene Hardwicke Olivieri grew up in South Texas at the mouth of the Rio Grande. She says, “I now live 1,000 miles upstream, a short walk to the edge of the Rio Grande River Gorge. I was baptized in the river and spent much of my childhood on the family farm along the riverbank. I love the leap from then to now.”
Between then and now, she spent a peripatetic life living everywhere from Central America to an off-grid home in Oregon to a lighthouse keeper’s cottage in Maine.
Snackadora of the Mesa, oil on panel, 24 x 30 in.Her love of the flora and fauna of the Taos Plateau extends to the human types who share that environment. Vinny, “a big bear of a man from the Bronx,” one of her closest neighbors living two miles away, helped her and her husband insulate her studio. “I kept bringing plates of snacks while he worked to keep him happy,” she relates. “Soon he made up the nickname Snackadora for me.
“As I got to know others who lived around here,” she continues, “I realized they were all bachelors. I like to share food with them, invite them for Thanksgiving and various meals. The painting Snackadora of the Mesa shows me with my four cats, driving food around to the men of the mesa. There’s a pot of beans cooking away, a dessert cart, fresh fruit, silverware, burritos, popcorn—all kinds of good snacks. One morning I woke up and knew I had to make a sculpture of the Snackadora. It was so fun using a jigsaw to cut out all of the food that she carries around on her cholla bindle. I learned the word bindlefrom Two Mama, my grandmother in South Texas, who used to feed hobos who traveled through the farm in the 1920s—the original Snackadora! Every morning I get up at 5 a.m. to feed snacks to the ravens, hummingbirds, cottontails, squirrels, quail, kangaroo rats and other creatures that live around here.”
Snackadora, oil on ponderosa, cholla cactus skeleton and rattlesnake skin, 48 x 55 in.
“The Snackadora sculpture has rattlesnake skin along the top of her boots. While I was working on it, Vinny had to kill a prairie rattlesnake that was threatening his dog. I was sad it had to be killed but glad to be able to incorporate the skin into the sculpture.”
Snackadora is the title of an exhibition of her recent work at Evoke Contemporary in Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 26 through July 25. “My show is called Snackadora because my paintings will be like unexpected treats for anyone who sees them, satisfying cravings, boosting energy.”
Your body is my greenhouse, oil on clay board, 20 x 10 in.
One hundred bright smiles, oil on clay board, 72 x 48 in.
Evoke Contemporary adds, “Irene Hardwicke Olivieri’s Snackadora is a vibrant meditation on environmental fragility and the interconnectedness of all living things…the exhibition showcases richly detailed oil paintings that celebrate nature’s beauty while addressing its vulnerability. These works often feature tiny, hand-painted stream-of-consciousness text, layering her personal emotions and scientific observations directly onto the canvas to explore the concept of ‘rewilding the heart.’” —
Evoke Contemporary 550 S. Guadalupe Street • Santa Fe, NM 87501 (505) 995-9902, www.evokecontemporary.com
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