Michael Oliver Love | Portfolio
An excerpt from the portfolio of Michael Oliver Love in 1605 Magazine No.2 Illusion
Images: Michael Oliver Love
An autodidact through and through, Michael Oliver Love (b. 1995, East London, South Africa) is undeniably one of the country’s most talented, promising artists. His work is radiant. It’s effervescent. And it brings together dynamic imagery, bold colours and undulous lines to reflect the energy and natural topography of his native South Africa. Love’s work straddles the high-brow world of fine art and the accessible sphere of commercial photography. With numerous solo exhibitions and work for clients including Burberry, Vanity Fair Italia, Telegraph Luxury and H&M under his belt, he is clearly an artist whose star is rising.
Expressing himself through imagery came naturally to Michael Oliver Love. He spent his youth slathering himself in paint and balancing point-and-shoot cameras on teetering towers of books. All in the hopes of snapping an intriguing self-portrait. Creativity and an innate urge to translate ideas onto paper defined him from a young age—and continue to guide him in work and in life. Self-portraits became meticulously orchestrated shots of friends in his backyard, and these eventually became the dreamy, slightly abstracted photographs we see today.
Love explores the landscape of the body in much of his work. He’s captivated by the honest, uncomplicated story a nude tells, by its grace and its timelessness. He’s also deeply moved by the juxtaposition of colour, light and form that can be created with his lens. His powerful portfolio (which has been propelled forward with the help of both social media and digital branding agency Hero Creative) throws off the shackles of the heteronormative gaze, bringing a sense of beauty and balance to the viewer.
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