Olivia Valiante 2026

Abstract

The Side Effects of Loving Something You Don’t Believe In is a series of paintings, printed works, and objects which explore love, healthy skepticism, and repetition while using the framework of a short story as a guide. The way that things change through retelling is explored through the concepts of illusory truth and the transmission chain method. The narrative depicted in the paintings deals with love, but it acts as a surrogate for a story about death. The desire is for the viewer to question what the story is, the truth of it, and how far it drifted from the original source in its iterations. The Side Effects of Loving Something You Don’t Believe In draws inspiration from horror, faulty memory, and my personal life experiences. Every object that is painted was intentionally selected. The Jersey Devil acts as a stand-in for an east coast childhood while the pill bottles invite you to see and dream as yourself. The deer skull acts as a memento mori. Threads move around the room and sit patiently in a bowl. Short story books and a guide to magic sit on the table as a ritual unfolds. Masked figures show us the outcome of love without belief, severance. Through this research and collection of poems and short stories, I have clarified the importance of these themes in my work and further explored their connection to one another.