Olivia Sterling, Dinner with a Show, 2022, installation view, Meyer Riegger, Berlin. Photo: Oliver Roura

Olivia Sterling

Dinner with a Show

29 October – 10 December 2022

Dinner with a Show is Olivia Sterling’s debut exhibition at Meyer Riegger and the artist’s first solo show in Germany.

“In a white country where whiteness informs your everyday life, what does being a person of colour feel like? It may feel like a coloured food stain on a seemingly brilliant white cloth.”

– Olivia Sterling

In her paintings, Sterling presents the viewer with scenes of daily life that subtly critique attitudes towards race, class, gender and social status. While her typically closely cropped and vividly coloured canvases – teeming with arms, legs and half-eaten food – may seem playful on first sight, they do in fact tackle subjects that are anything but. In this way, Sterling’s artworks can be seen as contemporary genre paintings, designed to make us reflect upon the world around us. Through her work’s outwardly jovial exterior, Sterling lulls us into a false sense of security and forces us to consider our own misconceptions and prejudices. For her exhibition at Meyer Riegger, Sterling has transformed the rooms of the gallery into a restaurant, which forms the stage upon which the events of Dinner with a Show take place.

Olivia Sterling, Dinner with a Show, 2022, installation views, Meyer Riegger, Berlin. Photos: Oliver Roura

Olivia Sterling was born in Peterborough, United Kingdom, in 1996. The artist has participated in a number of exhibitions in the UK – including the solo presentation Episodes at CCA Goldsmiths (2021) and the group show Beano: The Art of Breaking the Rules at Somerset House (2021) – as well as abroad.

Sterling gained her BA in Fine Art from the University of Derby in 2018 and graduated from the MA Painting course at the Royal College of Art in 2020.