The world of 3D animated space, where virtual reality can be set in motion or sit frozen in still life, can take on as many forms as there are in physical reality. It’s a wide space where control and chaos collide. For self-taught, Chicago-based artist Olivia Derman, 3D virtual art is a way of centering her mind.

Derman’s 3D image work is full of vibrant, neon or muted colors, geometric shapes, curves, and smooth and crystalline surfaces. Objects like mirrors, arcing forms, fluids and virtual human shapes are frozen in striking moments. They are simple but complex, minimal but not intensely so. They are all well ordered, and that has something to do with the very nature of Derman’s mind.

“I strive to create minimalism and simplicity because of the chaos going on in my brain,” Derman tells The Creators Project. I suffer from mental illness and the best way to center myself is to create.”

“I go through brief but intense periods of creativity, maybe lasting a couple of days at a time—many times it follows a period of severe depression,” she adds. “I create to escape emotions or feelings, and sometimes I put those feelings into my work.”

Derman says she’s really inspired by abstract minimalism, futurism and modern interior design. She also finds conceptual and visual sources in contemporary 3D artists like Kim Laughton’s surreal 3D animations, Terrell Davis’ hypercolored still 3D images and Organ Armani’s playfully warped (and sometimes dark) digital art.

Click here to check out more of Olivia Derman’s work.

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Via The Creators Project