Olivia Faiola is a senior at the University of Denver, a double-majoring BA with distinction in Studio Art and Emergent Digital Practices, with a minor in Marketing. Alongside this, she works in DU’s art department as a printmaking assistant.

Faiola’s artwork explores identity through symbolism, transformation, and personal narrative. Pulling from familial attributes, memories, and lived environments, she uses playful, layered imagery such as fruits and vegetables, and blending portraits of herself and her family as stand-ins for emotion, heritage, and self-perception.

Her recent work expands this exploration by incorporating produce, which has always been at the forefront of her life, from pickled vegetables to her great-grandmother’s mango tree. Faiola depicts fruits and vegetables with new meaning, transforming them beyond their familiar symbolism and repositioning them within her own narrative and identity. While the work maintains a playful, humorous tone, Faiola uses it to convey emotion, memory, and personal transformation.