Olivia Bee

Personal life

Bee is the daughter of a hairdresser mother and a high-tech worker. Bee grew up in Portland, Oregon, where she attended da Vinci Arts Middle School. She moved to Brooklyn, New York when she was 18 years old.

Photography

Bee's interest in photography began at the age of 11 when she first took a photography class. In 2013 she summarised her early work as "Like, stuffed animals and a picture of my mom in the kitchen." Afterwards, Bee began taking photos independently and uploading them to the image hosting website Flickr, where the footwear company Converse saw her work and asked her to photograph for their company. Her work was featured in an advertising campaign for Converse when she was 14. Her work was also used in campaigns for Adidas, Fiat, Hermès, Levi Strauss & Co., Nike and Subaru, and published by The New York Times and Le Monde. Bee decided to pursue photography as a full-time career after unsuccessfully applying to study at Cooper Union in New York City.

Work style

Her work is largely focused on her own life and that of her friends; Kurt Soller of New York described her work as "dreamy, seventies-inspired photographs of maybe-wasted, increasingly famous young people who just want to have fun, injected with ombré washes of color (often pink)", while Kathy Sweeney of The Guardian observed that "Bee finds a dreamlike, innocent colour in her friends' gently dissolute experimentation." In an interview with Paper Magazine, Bee characterized her work as "real, obsessive emotions put in a pop context." Her photographs often diverge from the rule of thirds, instead placing subjects in the center of the frame. In 2011 she cited Ryan McGinley, Annie Leibovitz and Nan Goldin as influences, and attributes her inspiration to her younger brother, mother and father's musical and artistic talents.