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Oliver Dorrell artist Walking

I am a British artist who paints while walking long distances, often across mountains, borders, or under geopolitical, climatic, historical or religious pressure. Each walk usually has an art historical or literary impetus, and the paintings I make along the way are shaped by the conditions they are made in: weather, altitude, solitude or fatigue.

In 2022, I walked from Milan to Munich, loosely following the route the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel took over the Alps in 1554. That journey became the exhibition Walking After Bruegel. More recently, I made a winter walk through the mountains of Wales, and travelled on skis through the Austrian Alps. Earlier painting trips have taken me to the Caucasus Mountains of Dagestan, and the pilgrimage town of Tirupati in Southern India, often working alongside local artists, journalists or pilgrims.

The work itself is necessarily spontaneous and portable. I paint in mountain huts, hotels, forests, and on hillsides. The paper or silk supports crease and wear as they travel in my rucksack, and when they are framed behind glass afterwards, they become fragile artifacts to the landscapes they travelled.

Education

2017/18     MA Painting. (Distinction). Wimbledon College of  Arts, University of the Arts London.

2001-2004 Bsc Anthropology. University College London.

Exhibitions

 

April-May 2024 - Solo Exhibition 'Walking After Bruegel: Paintings From Mountain Huts' The Muse Gallery, London.

 

Oct-Nov 2023 - 'Don't Look Back' Vivienne Roberts Projects, The Bindery, London

Nov-Dec 2021 'We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On, Aleph Contemporary. Cello Factory, London

Nov 2020 - 'Art On A Postcard' London

 

Oct-Dec 2020- 'Reflections' Aleph Contemporary. London

Nov 2019 - The Ethnic Cultural Centre, Makhachkala, Dagestan, Russia

July 2019 -'Loop' Blase' London

Mar 2019 -'Guerilla Warefare' Blase, London

Apr 2019 - Vishnu Manchu Art Residency Exhibition, Turupathi, South India

Nov 2018 -'Wrong Food'  Blasé, London

Sept 2018 - Wimbledon College of Art MA Show, London

May 2018 -'62 Hands'. Lewisham Art House, London

Residencies and Painting Trips

2025 - January, A Walk from Merthyr Tydfil to Conway

2024 - January, A Walk on Skis from Innsbruck up to a Mountain Hut

2022 - October and November, A Walk from Milan to Munich

2021 - A Walk from Dorset to Cornwall

2020 - A Walk around Dorset

2019 - Vishnu Manchu Art Foundation Residency, Tirupati, South India.

2018 - Winter Walk, Tusheti, Georgia

2017 - Winter Residency, Dagestan Republic, Russia 

2016 - Winter Walk, Albanian Alps

2014 - Walk, the rivers of South China 

2014 - Winter Walk, Tusheti, Georgia

2009 - Documnetary Film, Koidu, Sierra Leone, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2013/sep/11/sierra-leone-child-soldier-video

2005 - Sailing from Antigua to New York

2004 - Sailing the Coast of Scotland from Grimsby to Belfast

2003 - Winter Walk, Pyrenees

2003 - Himilaya Walk, India and Nepal

2002 - UCL Expedition Grant, Rowing down the Mekong River from China to Vietnam

2000 - Rowing down the Ganges River, India

2000 - East Himilaya, Sikkim, India

Contact

Represented by Vivienne Roberts Projects

viviennerobertsprojects.com

©2025 Oliver Dorrell. All rights reserved. No part of this site may be produced without permission.

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