Havant artist and mum displays her wearable wedding sculptures at Occasions of West Street

Art graduate, Olana Light, has her wedding outfit installations displayed at Occasions of West Street, which her and her partner wore to their own wedding last year, after the venue was eager to support her while showing the work’s ‘powerful message’.

The art work, entitled ‘Search to Belong’ explores the idea of identity, belonging and ‘otherness’ and is based on reusing items that might usually end up in landfill.

Olana’s two sculptures are made from polystyrene.

Olana was inspired to create the sculptures while planning her wedding during the pandemic and wanting to incorporate her work into her special day.

She hopes to use the space as a new way to promote her work outside of a traditional exhibition space.

She said: ‘I wanted to make some kind of costumes for the wedding. At the end it was sculptures, not just a costume and head pieces which were close to the faces.

‘During lockdown I decided to take inspiration for my wearable sculptures out of installation-based environment and bring it to the real life.

‘I visited Fareham shopping centre just to say hello to Elena [the boutique’s owner]. I thought it would be a great idea to show the sculptures as well because it's related to the boutique and it's a wedding theme.

‘As an artist I work with recycled materials and I use organic materials.’

Olana has had her art installations and sculptures exhibited at God's House Tower in Southampton and the wedding costumes she in exhibiting will soon be displayed at the Southampton City Gallery and The Spring in Havant.

The boutique’s founder has been keen to support Olana’s work as a close friend to the artist.

A member of the Occasions team said: ‘We are always shocked, surprised and delighted by her creativity. So when Olana got in touch about her most recent work, ‘Search to Belong’, we were honoured and excited to display her work.

‘We are always keen to use our window displays as a means of stopping passers by and getting them to have a look.’

The boutique hope to display the sculptures for another month after they were installed on June 23.