Francis Olvez-Wilshaw

Artist Statement

I am a mixed race artist of Filipino/English heritage who makes large-scale sculptures, prints and drawings that are contemplative responses to questions of journey, space, and memory—emerging from both personal recollection and historical research. These forms are imagined approximations of a past I did not directly witness, yet they are reconstituted into physical objects: fragments of a larger, ongoing retelling and imagining of a personal mythology. This mythology is constructed through a fusion of historical and contemporary research, lived experiences, found photographs, and conversations with elders in my family. Through these narratives, I trace connections between past and present, absence and presence.

I engage in a broader inquiry into collectivist emancipation. I’m interested in how sculpture can become a material and spatial vessel for shared memory and reimagining. By grouping discarded materials and everyday objects—items once overlooked or deemed obsolete—I create volumetric, three-dimensional collages. Each element retains its own history, function, and journey, yet together they form a new, unified whole—an object reanimated with purpose and possibility.

My work is also shaped by the rhythm of my childhood: the long summers spent every few years in the Philippines. Over time, those memories have both sharpened and softened—blurring into one another, sometimes vivid, sometimes elusive. As I revisit them, I examine their emotional weight and question their accuracy.