Artist Profile: Bianca Roland

Self-taught, Oklahoma-based artist, Bianca Roland makes fantastical works of art. Her multimedia pieces are delectable. Some appear almost cake-like in their decorative ornamentation, while her other works form other-worldly topographies.

Always creative, Roland veered away from arts in adulthood. “Life happened and I lost touch with my creativity,” Roland said. “I was generally pretty directionless about what I wanted to do with my life for the better part of a decade.” 

After starting a medication that worsened her pre-existing depression, Roland found herself in new depths of darkness. It wasn’t until 2016 that  Roland returned to arts as a therapeutic escape. 

“I started with art journaling, just for myself,” Roland said. “By 2018 I was starting to paint seriously.”

The brightness of her art stands in stark contrast to the depression her creative process helped pull her out of. As her artistic practice shifted from a therapeutic exercise, to a hobby, to a part-time gig, Roland explored a variety of expressive forms. 

“The process that seems to have taken the longest time has been finding my own style,” Roland reflected. “I started to find it towards the end of my stretch of painting, and when I figured out I wasn't going to be able to bring my vision to life in 2D that's when I decided to make that switch. And now, in my new medium, I finally feel like I'm working entirely in my own language.” 

Her early works were 2-D with pops of color that jumped out from the flat surfaces. Her style developed from journal pages to canvases. The lines in her early work are curvy and the shapes playful. They form what could be described as cartoon-like landscapes; they pull the viewer into a bouncy world of funky foliage and charming coral. 

When Roland started playing with 3-D works, the distinctive colors that marked her earlier paintings transferred to her sculptural style, only now the colors adorned clay, beads, and upcycled materials. 

Her sculptural works are like bouquets arranged by a masterful florist or candy charcuterie trays curated by a kooky confectioner. 

“I like the density of ecosystems like coral reefs and rainforests,” Roland said of her work. “I look to those environments for inspiration on things like how to cluster the various elements of a piece. But I like to make it alien. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. I'm heavily influenced by places like Wonderland and Oz, and Alice is my muse.”

Roland’s work is a testament to creative practice as a form of internal therapy. While Roland’s practice served to pull her out of a depression, it also serves as a joyful visual stimulant for her audiences. 

Check out more of Roland’s work on her Instagram profile or at her website.