Erik Olson “New Portraits”
BravinLee Programs
This event has ended.
BravinLee programs presents New Portraits by Erik Olson.
Olson, 31 lives and works in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and is a graduate from Emily Carr University in Vancouver. New Portraits consists of 21 paintings and five wood sculptures. This is Olson’s first one person show in the United States.
Erik Olson paints portraits of his friends. He uses a loaded brush and applies saturated color, creating fractal like shifting planes, building a discontinuity of space and structure. In the process, the likeness and psychology of the sitter remains inexplicably unharmed. The surfaces are composed of thinly applied fields of color and thick loaded-up brushstrokes. The elements of the surfaces seem to be moving in multiple directions simultaneously. It is as if they are spinning through space being formed tectonically by their own gravitational pull while opposing rotational forces are ripping them apart.
Olson has looked carefully at Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud.
The exhibition also includes five wood sculptures which are more raw and abstract than the paintings. While the paintings are portraits of actual people, the sculptures are more like portraits of the paintings.
Erik Olson was recently named to the short-list for “100 Painters of Tomorrow,” a competition culminating in an exhibition at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts and a book published by Thames and Hudson. The competition is juried by Cecily Brown, Sir Norman Rosenthal, Yuko Hasegawa, Gregor Muir, Suzanne Cotter, Suzanne Hudson, Philip Tinari and Barry Schwabsky.
[Image: Erik Olson “Nandin” (2013), oil on canvas mounted on board, 20 x 16 in.]
Media
Schedule
from October 25, 2013 to November 30, 2013
Opening Reception on 2013-10-25 from 18:00 to 20:00