Oliver is an artist living and working in Birmingham having studied at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, graduating with a First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art. His childhood and education were spent in rural Shropshire, until he moved to the city to study at the Margaret Street School of Art. It is this immediate and intense change of environments that has led him to become perceptive and greatly analytical of the world around us. This critique, with regards to his most recent work, is the face. It is one of the most abundant and influential cues in our society and media, yet due to its frequency, has the capacity within our perception, to be one of the most overlooked and disregarded. His examination extends from, exploring its role in society and the media, to its bond with identity and to how other individuals react and respond to it.

" We see thousands of faces every day; in the street, in advertising, in our wallets even on our credit cards to name but a few. Take the passport photograph as an example; the portrait is supposed to represent one's self, however in taking the photo the strict guidelines on how it is required to be taken mean you cannot bear your teeth, have too much shine from your face, have your eyes too widely open, and in fact impedes this very objective. This is just another result of our access to the instantaneous technological portrait; immediately presented and enhanced to be the image that we 'believe to be ourselves'. We have grown so used to these kinds of portraits that we have become receptive and even indifferent to them, accepting them as the norm; in this way we are uneasy in accepting anything contrary to the posed, fake and deceitful view of perfection and of ourselves. The media is a powerful ambassador for the portrayal of such an image, therefore I adopt similar techniques in my work to "re-advertise" and exemplify a more common and natural image of the face. "

His work has evolved to take the form of large photo realistic drawings of the face; the portraits purposefully contradict the picturesque and perfect visage that we are presented with daily and are motivated to improve and upkeep. Currently, they compel the viewer to become intimate with faces that they would rarely become so personal with, perhaps even avoid, either due to their physical appearance, the environment that they are in or the image that they represent. His process of selecting a single image from a sequence of photographs taken of the same subject can result in an undesirable or ambiguous outcome, however strives to eradicate the posed, unnatural and deceptive portrayal of the face that we have become receptive to.

" For these portraits I have been working in coloured chalk pastel on paper as their fragile properties reflect and enhance the fragile nature of the flesh but more importantly the application is comparable to the way we apply products, touch and handle our own faces. It also aims to dispel the immediacy of the instant technological portrait we have become accustomed to due to the time taken during the process, application and completion of the piece. I include nothing else in the portrait so that the audience concentrate solely upon the face - I believe that social and historical contexts can only be associated to representations of background or clothing, so much so that I rarely feel the necessity to include a neck or even a frame, as the concentration on the face is imperative ". Instead of traditionally framing the pieces Oliver encases the pieces in clear acrylic boxes, which not only requires little of the audience's attention but also mirrors stands and placards used in advertising.