Interview

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There are some rather flagrant contradictions and identity loopholes to Olympia Scarry. First, there’s her nationality: Although she’s a London-based artist, she’s not really British. Born in Geneva, she’s the second grand-daughter of famed children’s book author and illustrator Richard Scarry. Her father, who followed Scarry Sr. into the children’s book business, moved the girls to the French countryside when Olympia was four years old, then to a Venice palazzo for half a decade, and later, when she was a teenager, to New York City. This is only the beginning of Scarry’s nomadic existence, but we’ll get back to that. The second paradox is her artwork. It’s a bit of a shock to learn that her preferred artistic materials are mainly heavy industrial matter—cables, motors, mirrors, and fluorescent lights (the last of which she used to illuminate a human form under a white sheet for a piece entitled After-Math at last summer’s Venice Biennale). And, finally, another ambiguity: While Scarry is clearly a total catch, she admits that she has some major issues with love. Scarry’s transition into adulthood may explain some of her more psychologically beguiling activities. She began high school in Manhattan, at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, an uptown girls’ school known for graduating a full spectrum of boldfaced blondes, from the Hilton sisters to Lady Gaga. But midway through high school, Scarry’s family moved again, this time back to Switzerland, where she attended boarding school. Several friends from those years who remain close confidants tell me that even when she lived abroad, Scarry maintained her New York style—a Goth demeanor and, according to at least one friend, a spiked dog collar. After high school, she moved to Paris and later London to study psychology, incorporating art classes into her coursework. It was the mixture of those pursuits—the brain and the arts—that led to her recent breakthrough in the art world. Her first solo show was held at the Conduits Gallery in Milan earlier this year. She’s now at work on an ambitious show at London’s 20 Hoxton Square Project set for this winter. A reserved young woman, she told me during our chat last June—in Berkeley Square on a perfect London day—that her art is about peeling back her own layers as well as working out what she considers her biggest mental leap: falling in love.

DEREK BLASBERG: What was your first major artwork?

OLYMPIA SCARRY: About three years ago, I did a sculpture called Le Vanitaas: La Belle et L’Obsession. It was a structure of mirrors, and inside was a hardened bra and garter. As you looked at the piece from different angles, it looked like the undergarments were filled by a body; from other perspectives, it had an infinity effect.

BLASBERG: Why a bra and panties?

SCARRY: It was about the pressures inflicted on women. I’ve found that more and more, women have to be obsessed with their beauty, constantly looking at themselves in the mirror. So it’s about the pressures of beauty.

BLASBERG: I gather you find these pressures very oppressive. Is that why you use such industrial materials? Why do you think you’re drawn to metal and electric cords and glass?

SCARRY: Those materials make sense to me. To me, black rubber cables embody human veins, and glass cases are fragile, still bodies; steel represents harsh brutality and coldness, like a butcher’s cutting table, and neons represent life. Right now I’m interested in human bodies, soap, and air.

BLASBERG: Have you always been interested in harder, larger art?

SCARRY: The first larger-than-life “work of art” I remember is the moon. Its size, brightness, and motion drew me in. La lune were my first words as a child, and my parents tell me I was always pointing to the moon as if discovering it for the first time. My first painting was a replica of Magritte’s Le Seize Septembre, with the moon as the focal point. My art teacher bought it from me with a check for $200. I was 13—my first sale! 

BLASBERG: I met your parents when I was in Venice for the Biennale. What do they make of their little girl being an artist who crystallizes women’s panties?

SCARRY: I think my father—he’s a very old-school painter and draftsman—for him, it’s . . .  interesting. At first he didn’t know what I was about, but now he says he’s proud.