Wilful Submission II, 2021

In her limited edition print for Ellipsis, artist Olivia Strange foregrounds queer experience and reclaims the eroticised female body as a site of agency rather than objectification.

Text is overlaid onto an abstract figurative ground, creating a charged interplay between image and language. The phrases operate both as confession and declaration, drawing attention to the ways desire is spoken, coded and internalised. Pleasure and pain are held in tension; intimacy is presented as complex, unstable and self-authored.

The layered composition reflects Olivia Strange’s wider practice, where fantasy and embodiment intersect. Figures hover between abstraction and recognition, resisting fixed identity while asserting presence. Through this visual and textual fusion, the work destabilises traditional power dynamics embedded in representation.

In risograph printing, each colour is printed as a separate pass through a risograph machine — a stencil-based duplicator that presses organic soy inks into the paper. Risograph inks are naturally vibrant — they are renowned for their vivid colours and evident textures. The inks are transparent so layers build to create more colours. Slight shifts in registration and a soft grain make every impression subtly unique.

Wilful Submission II is printed on Olin natural white 170gsm, an uncoated, FSC-certified stock whose gentle warmth lets the colours glow. The edition is strictly limited to 100 and will never be reprinted. All prints were produced at the London Centre for Book Arts.