Bio

Rosemary Ollison (b. 1942) is a self-taught artist who lives in Milwaukee, WI. When she was 16 years old she moved to the midwest from a plantation in Arkansas. She began making art in 1994 while healing from an abusive marriage and for the next 25 years has explored numerous media. Most of her work deals thematically with her identity as a black women and celebrates the power, individuality and mystique of other women. Besides drawing, Rosemary collects glass, leather, bracelets, beads, bones and jewelry and repurposes these materials into sculptural works. She has redesigned her small apartment with layers of pattern, duct tape sculptures, curtains of woven leather, crazy quilts and inventive drawings. She also designs clothing and writes poetry. Ollison says she creates in dialog with God: “When I am creating I am satisfied, I am free! I no longer just exist, I am alive!”

Exhibition History

Portrait Society Gallery has presented her work at the Outsider Art Fair, New York, each year since 2017. She has also shown her work at the Lynden Sculpture Garden, the Saint Kate Art Hotel, Racine Art Museum (Racine, WI), Haggerty Museum of Art (Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI) UWM Union Gallery, Milwaukee; Indianapolis Public Library; Walker’s Point Center for the Arts; Uihlein Peters Gallery; Cissy Peltz Gallery, Milwaukee; and Alphons Gallery. Her work is included in the collections of the Lynden Sculpture Garden, Northwester Mutual Insurance collection, Chipstone Foundation and the Milwaukee Art Museum. She is represented by Portrait Society Gallery.