Amanda Oleander

Biography

Amanda Oleander was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to parents of Chilean and Venezuelan backgrounds. Oleander left Fort Lauderdale at 16 years old following Hurricane Wilma, and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, where she completed school and graduated cum laude with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in illustration from The University of North Carolina. In 2013, Oleander moved to Los Angeles after landing an internship with creative design agency NCLUSIVE, where she created graphics, and illustrations for brands and celebrities like Paris Hilton and Antonio Cromartie. In 2014, Oleander began working for E! Entertainment as their first in-house, full-time illustrator. After completing her contract, Oleander created her personal brand, Amanda Oleander, where she promoted her paintings. She has become a Keynote Speaker on the topics of art and social media, having spoken at the TV of Tomorrow Show in New York, Social Media Baker's Engage in New York, Summit Live in San Francisco and New York and Los Angeles, and at the Vanity Fair Social Club at Art Basel in Miami.

Periscope

In 2015, the live video app Periscope launched and Oleander used the platform to give an inside look of the life of an artist living in Los Angeles. Within the first week, she became the most followed and "hearted" girl on the app, garnering over 7.5 million “loved” taps in less than a month. During her Periscope sessions, Oleander would go on adventures around Los Angeles, talk about life and even create live paintings, which she’d then sell online. Her pieces caught the attention of art collectors worldwide including of T-Mobile CEO John Legere, who bought one of her paintings during a Periscope live feed.

CBS News called Oleander Periscope’s “First Big Star." She was also featured on Cosmopolitan, E! Online, New York Magazine, BuzzFeed, Yahoo!, AdWeek and more. In 2015, Oleander appeared as a guest with Micheal Strahan in 2015 for the annual Year in Review segment on ABC. Oleander also previously hosted the Artiscope Gallery Art Show, a “first-of-its-kind interactive art show set to be live-streamed on Periscope,” where viewers were able to interact with Oleander and other artists, and even participate in a silent auction, with a portion of the proceeds going to the American Disaster Relief Fund.

Oleander has currently garnered nearly 53 million "loves,” otherwise known as likes on the app, and close to 600,000 followers.

Artwork

Oleander is an internationally known artist. She goes back and forth between digital illustrations to using traditional mediums, including but not limited to painting, graphite sketches and pen illustrations. Oleander credits Amedeo Modigliani, Shel Silverstein, Tim Burton and Pablo Picasso as her biggest influencers. In 2015, her artwork was featured by Cosmopolitan, and Oleander was named on their list of 'Internet's most fascinating'.

Oleander became known for her “little eyes” trademark style in her work, which began during her last year in college. She later spawned a new series called the Endangered Species Collection. Oleander is a partner with The World Wild Life Fund and for every animal painting she sells from the collection, Oleander symbolically adopts the animal from the World Wild Life Fund by donating money and in return, gets an adoption certificate, which is included in the purchase of the painting to the customer. Original, collectible and hand-signed artwork is available on her website.

Oleander has collaborated with Volvo, Intel, Vanity Fair and The Sundance Film Festival to name a few. Replicas of her paintings can be found online in stores like Sears, Wayfair, and All Modern. Currently, Oleander is working on a line of LGBT greeting cards, a shoe collection, an illustrated book about true love and continuing the #EndangeredSpeciesCollection .