Demetrius Oliver

Demetrius Oliver
Born	1975 Brooklyn, New York
Nationality	American
Alma mater	MFA University of Pennsylvania, BFA Rhode Island School of Design

Demetrius Oliver (born 1975) is an American artist and educator based in New York City. He is known for site-specific, multi-disciplinary installations using photography, sculpture, and video. Using common materials and found imagery, his work explores such themes as American transcendentalism, music, and cosmology.

Oliver received his B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island in 1998. He received his M.F.A in 2004 from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he was a student of Terry Adkins.

Oliver was an artist-in-residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine in 2004; The Core Program in Houston, Texas from 2004 to 2006; and The Studio Museum in Harlem in New York City from 2006 to 2007; Light Work in 2009 where he brought with him boulder-sized anthracite that has recurred in his work.

His residency at Studio Museum in Harlem in 2007 culminated in a show called Midnight's Day Dream and in 2009 his work was included in an exhibition there called 30 Seconds Off an Inch curated by Naomi Beckwith that featured a work he made with a suitcase of coal and light called Asterism, evoking astronomy and fantasy.

In 2011 Oliver participated in an exhibition about the impact of the work by Bettye Saar. The show featured work she was influenced by as well as artists like Oliver, who was influenced by her metaphysical, found object work. Other artists featured alongside Oliver were David Hammons, Hank Willis Thomas, Radcliffe Bailey and Kiki Smith.

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