Olivia Bee is celebrated for her dreamy, evocative portraits and landscapes rich with implied narratives of intimacy, freedom, and adventure. Olivia Bee: Kids in Love showcases two bodies of photographic work, including the series, Enveloped in a Dream, that first brought Bee recognition as a teenager. This first series offers a visual diary of girlhood friendship and the exploration of self, showcasing Bee’s unique ability to convey the bittersweet nostalgia of adolescence on the brink of adulthood and new possibilities.
The second set of images, Kids in Love, is drawn from recent work and continues Bee’s photographic chronicle of her circle of friends and new loves, capturing both the pleasures and terrors of the fleeting passage of romanticized youth. While the work continues to evolve, what remains constant is her seductive use of color and photographic artifact, as well as the immediacy and charge of each image. Bee gives voice to the self-awareness and visual fluency of the millennial generation.
Experiences are sharply felt, and easily communicated and shared, generating visual records that render these memories as significant as the moments themselves. Tavi Gevinson, founding editor of the online magazine Rookie and Bee’s frequent collaborator and model, writes about the work and about the role of images as social currency in today’s image-driven world.
Industry Reviews
The first time I looked through 22-year-old photographer Olivia Bee's new book, Kids in Love, I shed a tear. More than one, actually. Not because it's sad or because I'm a middle aged sap, but because it's beautiful, and resonates with the pure gut feeling of being young and in love. -HuckOlivia Bee shows an eye for striking, unexpected moments combined with the sort of nonchalant candor found in the work of predecessors like Nan Goldin and Ryan McGinley. -American Photo Magazine
...exposes the essence of being a teenage girl in the raw. -BUST
The moments she captures are the little, bittersweet memories that find us and flood our thoughts before we fall asleep... - BUST
...paints a romantic picture of fading youth -Lomography
...a tribute to the innocence and carefree moments of youth... -Lomography
...has the rare duality of being a mature body of work delivered from a young perspective. -Portland Mercury