Page 96 - Winter Issue

Oliver Hurst

Oliver Hurst graduated from Falmouth College of Arts in 2006 with a degree in Illustration. He has
produced artwork for various publications, including the Financial Times, Country Life and Time Out
magazine and has illustrated books for WQS, Faber and Folio Society among others. He paints in oils
on board or canvas and his work is heavily inspired by 18th and 19th century history and the painters
of those eras. He lives and works in Bath, with his partner Urszula and their cat.

‘’I have a strong interest in history’s societal and political swells and deflations, from which came the
inspiration to start a series of paintings I’ve named ‘Capriccios’. It is a merging of my love of 18th and 19th
century painting styles and my interest in social history and what its future may bring. The central focus of
these paintings are ruins. Based on similar structures in Rome and throughout Europe, these may symbolise
tragically fallen enlightened civilisations, or the reverse; self-imploded and doomed empires. Either way, they
are scenes of people coping with what has been thrust upon them, for better or worse.’’

Capriccio VI - Oil on panel, 32x50cm, 2023

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