Olivia de Posson - in full spectrum

As usual, life brings you to meet fantastic people. And somehow, you find out you’ve got friends in common. Months after that discovery, Olivia came to London for an exhibition… I took the opportunity to meet her in person and experience “live” the frequency of her paintings.

This conversation happened months after meeting in London. And more months passed since it was recorded on zoom. As a first interview of the year 2023, I am happy that we highlighted the importance of taking long breaks from our creative jobs…
She is a true rebel, whose life is 100% her own. Her courage to follow her soul calling - which is painting - was filled with obstacles… but ohhhh the rewards later on!
Olivia de Posson is a mystic committed to her own soul path and it is highly impossible not to have your own soul calling activated in her presence. Short story, it is during lunch with Olivia and other 2 ladies that Geraldine admitted she really wanted to go into illustration, and it happens that I was looking for an illustrator for my first children’s book…. we jumped into a partnership that day!
My wish is that a little bit of the frequency of women like Olivia passes through this interview, for IN HER GENIUS is a custodian of activating frequencies and essences at the service of women.

Have a wonderful read and remember that taking accountability for your soul calling is a sweet responsibility, never a burden.

How are you?

Olivia De Posson: Good! I was dancing just before our call. There is such beautiful medicine music… I thought it would put me in good vibes anyway to dance before this call.  

Well, you inspire me to dance next time… I am feeling a little low energetically, because I went to the city centre for some errands and it was soo full of people & noise that it drained me very quickly.

Yeah you get all the energy of the stress around. So probably you just need to re-centre into your own energy because in the city you picked up everyone’s energy.

I did a retreat this weekend and I probably always knew that I am - everyone is - unconsciously super connected to the energies of other people but really sometimes we don’t feel good and it may not even depend on us. So this weekend, at the retreat, we did constellations and it’s a great “game”/therapy because you realise, you get into the field of someone else,  and you help that person heal that little worry in their life. So you step into their field and you’re not yourself anymore, you start feeling all those things and talking all those things but it’s not really you and you understand how easy it is to get in the field of someone else. 

Also there are energies and entities that aim at getting attached to you, especially when they feel someone lighter and cleaner…

For sure! Even unconsciously, you know. Maybe they can feel your light, your love and they need it for themselves… 

Another thing you inspire me so greatly is to live life in more colour, I mean now you are wearing a beautiful orange sweater… is your wardrobe entirely colourful?

It’s funny because I almost never wear black. Yet very recently I started wearing black again, forcing myself to think I should not neglect the shadow aspect of ourselves, that dark side. Not everything is about light and love. There is also that aspect of life when it is really important to go deep within, to bring actually higher light. So recently I consciously force myself to wear a bit of my black stuff. At some point I was scared of wearing black, or not scared but I didn’t want to embrace that path in life. Now I have no problem marrying both.

At this moment I am wearing black underneath the orange sweater so I got the union of both. 

I’m torn between asking you first about your relationship with colours, and who is the genius Olivia.

Well Olivia and colour go well together so probably I understand why you don’t know which question to ask because they’re a bit the same. 

I think Olivia is colourful but all the spectrum of colour, even if I said that at some point in my life I was avoiding dark shades. What I love the most in life is all the deep mysteries, the invisible, the unconscious, those things that you feel so deeply within but you can’t put words to, the dream-life. And not only what you can see and touch but the whole spectrum of life and then I connect to the whole spectrum of colour, the whole spectrum of emotions, the whole spectrum of feelings… and it brings out something extremely colourful, as you can see in my paintings. 

But who is Olivia… I mean, who am I? It’s a question I kind of live with everyday. I guess we are not one thing, we change every time. Actually the more we are on a quest like we are set to really understand ourself, the universe, connect to that Oneness, that Divine part of us as well… the more we are on that path, the more we change, meaning the way we view ourself one day is completely different to a few months later. Also how we see a book or a painting and how we process that it’s on a totally different level. 

Tell me more about how the more we are on our path, the more we tend to change….

What I mean is you change and you don’t change.
In a way, you get back to that One-essence, that Oneness and you realize you are connected to the whole, to the Divine, to that one sacred bliss, that ecstasy and that’s who you are. Well, that’s how I feel I am when I connect to my core, it’s delicious, Divine!
And at the same time, because we constantly go deeper and deeper and deeper, and the more you meditate, and you analyse your dreams and you feel and you create and you express that Divine thing at the core of who you are in so many different ways… it’s actually one source that gets expressed in so many different aspects. One day you are connected to one delicious aspect, another day to a more difficult aspect, another day to another delicious aspect but differently. So yes it’s one source that never changes, and aspects that change all the time. Like a paradox!

I guess because in our society we are not taught to recognise a person’s essence, we think it’s destabilizing and also quite “too much” for someone to be constantly changing a job, a style, a career, etc. And we don’t realise that those things are all just expressions of who you/we are, not who we are.

And then the more we taste and we touch these deep things, through all these different angles within and without, the more we perceive these experiences and understand them deeply not just on the mental level but deep feeling level, the more we view another side of it, another layer of it, another revelation, and you may feel you understand everything all of a sudden and at the same time you don’t understand anything. 

Yes, like in a constant movement. 

Look, I am always connected to the same source… It's always me painting, yet each painting is totally different. I am Olivia, always the same painter but it’s impossible to do twice the same thing because you let your energy and source to express itself without controlling anything, you let go, it’s all the different facets of Olivia. 

You call your art energy art, how is it different from “normal” art? 

I thought that every artist had the same process as me, that it was normal we are connected to the Divine, we let go, we receive and we share. I didn’t think of categorising, like who cares I’m just an artist… but then people wanted to categorise, wanted to understand in which box to put me. And also the more I started talking to other artists - before I was just doing my art without connecting with any artist - I realized we don’t have at all the same way of creating, with the same process, the same reasons, the same consciousness, the same opening. Some people are in a more intellectual process, some others copy what they have in front, others sketch before the final piece. For me it’s totally different. It's the way that I am in general. What I love and what art helps me to connect to and to do is really to let go and to really feel in sync with the divine that flows through you. I’m really controlling nothing! Well, probably there’s a tiny bit of control unconsciously because I’m human, but it’s really a way to be surprised and feel all these things that pass through me. It’s a surprise each time what I’m going to do, how it’s going to end up meeting with it. Because I process all this in me first, I kind of know what it means. It's total channeling. 

And I’m sure every art is in a way a channeling, but for some it’s more passing through the left brain, whereas for me it’s totally pure energy. You can call it what you want, I call it energy because if I say spirit it will speak only to spiritual people. We are all connected to energy whether we realize it or not, and for some reason I just manage to totally let go and be a pure conduit for the Universe to express. That’s how I feel.

I don’t just do it through painting, it’s a way of life: I let myself talk, I use automatic writing, dance movements. Throughout the years I actually figured out that what I do, or the way it’s categorised, is called Light Language. It’s said that this is not the language of the left brain that learns and is programmed to learn, rather it’s the language of the soul, very freeing. It’s a natural connection to the soul that you don’t need to understand at the conscious level. This is exactly what I feel I receive and share. I feel states of deep love, euphoria and ecstasy - but not euphoria like crazy, I mean sometimes yes, but also deep stillness… an energy that feels like whatever happens around you in the world you feel so good inside. In a way I’m super happy because I have this belief that through my paintings I can spread these energies to people who come across them. Those who have my paintings in their home, day by day, perhaps my painting will start to communicate with their soul and through this soul to soul communication the people get liberated and will know oneness and love. I know it sounds cheesy but it’s so deep at the same time. I believe that is what my art contributes to, and there’s so many other ways to do it and so many other people who do it. I’m not the only one.

It feels delicious and it feels divine.
Also I feel like I’m not just serving my soul when I paint, but also serving the souls. 

What do you mean by that?

What I mean is I feel I receive cosmic energy from the source, like Divine energies - you call it what you want. And it’s vibrations that communicate with everyone, everything is vibration and everything communicates, everything is ultimately information… but because these are so loving vibrations and informations that I receive, they really feel delicious, they really feel Divine. Truly unconditional love and bliss, it feels very magical and beautiful and so Divine that I know that the energy within each of my paintings, because you know my paintings are water base acrylic, it means that all the intention (and loving energy that I receive) gets passed through the water and stays within every painting. That is then what it radiates all around to someone who goes to the gallery, or someone who has my painting hanging at home… every day it communicates unconsciously with that person, soul to soul. My belief is that those energies will step by step kind of liberate the people from false programs that we have. I believe they help us find unity within, and to liberate us from fears and false programming so to go back to our essence, for these artworks are all pure energy and pure essence because I am not at all in the mental, I’m not trapped within the programs. I may be sometimes in my life but my life work is to liberate and when I paint I liberate that totally which then spills over to other people around. At the very least it spreads love and joy and beautiful vibrations.

I love this mystical aspect of your art.

I don’t communicate this so openly but I am totally mystical. So my art is also mystical and magical, and Divine in that way. Or at least this is the way I feel it is and I feel I am.

Were you always so connected?

I think yes but I don’t think I was conscious of this connection. In a way I’ve always naturally felt these deep feelings, and I’ve always practiced automatic writing. In the classroom at school I was always writing poetry and feeling deeply the music while dancing to it. I always loved the night and wouldn’t sleep because that was the time I could really connect. I was always a right-brain kind of person, connected to love and bliss. I remember I had many books besides my bed on the philosophy and definition of love and to me it never quite felt right for me, they gave a material explanation but to me it was so much deeper. So that side of me was always present and at the same time I was a kid who had to do what her family told her to do and what her school told her to do. I also remember hearing things, which I don’t feel I have now, but I was hearing things like at the other side of the classroom someone opening their pencil case and taking out their pens, and I could hear every detail so loud in my head. I thought everyone had that only to realize after telling everybody that actually nope. I think I “cut” that gift or forgot about it because I was told to behave a certain way, study specific things, and so on. I listened to all that I had to do. I’ve been like a little soldier, listening to outside authority for a long period of my life.

It’s been very heavy on my soul to force myself every day to go to that classroom and later to that office. Thing is, I thought I had no choice! There was no one in my surroundings who was an artist or even spiritual, so I thought I had to put it to the side like it was not important, I thought life was not like I imagined and I needed to struggle: it is how it is. I put that part of me to the side, not that I didn’t use it, but basically I was playing the normal life that would suit a lot of people just not me. Thus as I said, I wasn’t sleeping much, the night was when I could connect to my soul and re-centre: in substance, because I really needed this connection to my soul, I would wake up 4 hours before being at the office - I used to work in finance and for the first few years I had to be at 6’30 AM in the office in London. Then if I had dinner out with friends, after I'd get home I didn’t go to sleep for another 2 hours even if I was exhausted because I just needed to do “nothing” and clear my energy field. I didn’t know why I needed that. 

That is how it happened, naturally, I went on having a normal life like everyone… until 6 years ago, when I started meditating every day, specifically transcendental meditation. So I started having that deep connection even during the day at the office, when I could take 20 minutes off my schedule. That changed a lot for me because I started to observe more. One year after I started transcendental meditation, I decided to be a full time artist. Until then, I had been working for 11 years in the city of London and I was painting at night and on the weekends, exhibiting sometimes but I thought that wasn’t a job, that I wasn’t allowed. Meditation served as an anchor because I was more in touch with my soul, I was listening and observing what was happening with me.

How has this brave choice rewarded you? Because I saw you exhibit in Miami for example. I see many artists that resist the calling out of fear of not making a living out of it.

You know, for me it still didn’t happen overnight. There is no secret.
Firstly, I think it is my life path. Secondly, I didn’t switch overnight - I was a natural artist since I was a child, like many other artists. I was already selling art while working in finance, of course much less than now, but I had proof in my world that it could work. Also, I think I wouldn’t have dared if the Universe didn’t bring something difficult and also probably if I’d never meditated and listened. And I got a message! I remember feeling that the company I was working for was having trouble, and I told people, ‘if something happens to this job, I won’t look for another job, I’m gonna try to follow my soul calling, I really need painting.’ A year later, the company did have trouble and I lost the job.
However, it is because through meditation I listened to the whispers of my soul and I knew this was my calling, maybe art is not a calling for all artists. 

And so, I went for it but it wasn’t that easy… I had all my family against me, ‘are you crazy? You're gonna be crying when you’re 45 and find yourself unmarried and without having bought a house’. And because they knew I was meditating they thought I was in a sect and been brainwashed, ‘your paintings are beautiful but that’s not life, you need to have a proper job’ they would tell me. I had to separate a bit from my family, and it wasn’t easy. I went traveling on my own for 3 months to kind of not listen to anyone else about what I should do.

I was scared to go traveling on my own because I had never done it, but it turned out to be life changing and really liberating. I realized I could be really happy on my own. My 3 months trip was a sort of vision quest without realizing it was that. I had a one way ticket to Bali without a plan of what I was going to do, there I spent the first month moving every 2 or 3 days. From there I went to the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, where I ended up doing a 10 days fast retreat. I just followed like an invisible thread. Anyway the Universe made it impossible for me to do anything other than painting because right before leaving for that trip I had opened an account on Saatchi online and I sold a painting to New York, then while on the trip in Thailand I had 24 hours to apply for an Art Fair organized by Saatchi. I applied and was accepted to exhibit there, then I sold another painting right when I got back and had other two propositions of exhibitions. The Universe was showing me that YES this is the right way so to not be scared about what others were saying, especially my family. 

And you noticed the signs!! Many times people don’t notice the signs at all…

Yes. That was 5 years ago and since then here I am. 

Well and now, how does your family see you and what you do?

Oh now my parents are sooo proud of me! I think in a way I did scare them a lot, but now they tell you ‘wow you were right’. Now they understand and are super proud, they learned that if you feel something so strongly then yes you should do it. Although because they don’t have that soul calling, you can’t understand what you don’t feel.. I can’t judge them, I understand them but I’m really happy that I stopped giving my power away to other people. Now I’m big enough to understand myself and I don’t function the same way they do. My reality of the world is totally different from theirs, that’s it. Both are right. One is better for me, one is better for them. 

When you really think about… and I mean, really think about it - if you are in the situation I was, living the double life for 11 years - and put aside your fear, there is no big deal in trying. You have a diploma, you worked for 11 years, if you try to leave your job and imagine it doesn’t work… you will find another job. What is the big deal, actually? I know we get stuck in our fears but you don’t really risk anything. The worst case is you go back to that job; the best case is it works and you’re so happy!! And… if it doesn’t work, you need to find a way to be happy because it’s a shame to spend an entire life on something we hate. At least get a job you like and that gives you the time to develop your soul calling, or practice it.
We don’t need to do our passion full time, that is not what matters. As long as you know why you’re doing your job and how it is serving your soul in an indirect way.
You know, at a retreat I was at this past weekend, there was a woman who works at Amazon and it’s super important that someone awakened like her stays in these big companies to change the mentalities and the energies. There are people who counterbalance the focus on expansion at all cost. I left the corporate world, but it’s important that some people stay. We are all different. 

I am one of those artists who cannot be an artist full time, I cannot do art all day every day.

No but neither do I do art all day every day because you need inspiration. So you have periods of deep inspiration and then suddenly the urge to express it in matter and create everything that you’ve received. It can’t be done robotically, or it can be the way for some artists but then it would be another kind of art.
Actually, I haven’t painted since early November. I’m not scared, I’m fine because I’m receiving so much and I know at some point I’m gonna be super fertile to paint all that I lived during these months. Otherwise I would always paint the same, and again I’m not saying it is bad… Everybody has a different message to express through their paintings and their art. But my way requires periods of receiving only, it requires me to open. It is not a constant doing, like in the corporate world where everything is about growth and expansion. I need to respect the cycles of rest, receive, be in the feminine… then when it is time, I feel the urge to put it out in the world, to be in my masculine and do, grow and expand. 

So, I’m not doing art every day. I’m connecting, I’m going deep, I’m feeling, I’m understanding, I’m reading, I’m dancing, I’m… I don’t know, receiving everything I need to receive then I suddenly create.

But if I was in a company, like before, and working a day job then painting at night, I wouldn’t be as fertile and my paintings wouldn’t be as vibrant. Now I need periods of nothing, then painting, then nothing, then painting. 

I love that!! I’ve been thinking a lot about this regarding my writing. I may write every day for 2 months because I have a lot of stories to share, but then I’m done with it for some time… I never know for how long, and it always feels as if I will never go back to writing again. In our society, this “nothing” is not seen as a fertile time of rest, on the contrary… it’s feared. 

I know! Yet this “nothing” is so needed, it’s so rich! This is how we get all this inspiration for the wonderful writings you do, for the wonderful paintings I do. If we didn’t have those “nothing moments” it wouldn’t be so magical. We need to take the time to feel, to listen, to get that deep understanding… so then when the time comes, we can share. 

Find Olivia’s paintings and information about future exhibitions here.