On a cloudy April afternoon, more than 30 paintings hang on the fences on opposite sides of a street in LA’s Highland Park neighbourhood. People in masks, out on their daily mental-health walks with their dogs, stop to look at the makeshift gallery of abstract art, while bicyclists and roller bladers slow down just enough to take it all in.
The woman behind the works is Olivia Arthur, who it turns out started staying home long before the government-mandated quarantine. The third-generation Angeleno is a self-described recluse, who for the last three years – after her beloved Chihuahua, Bernice, went missing – made a conscious decision to hunker down in her home, make art and avoid people.