Erik Olson | Nudes

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Erik Olson, “Untitled (0023),” 2015

oil pastel on paper, 11.25 x 15 inches (courtesy of the Gallery)

Opening Reception and Book Launch: Friday 20 September 5-9 pm.

VIVIANEART is proud to present a solo exhibition of drawings by artist Erik Olson. NUDES, includes over one hundred works, all oil pastel on paper measuring 15 x 11 ¼ inches. In tandem we are excited to launch Olson’s first publication, an artist book of the same title. Featuring fifty of these drawings, NUDES, is a limited, first edition printing with just fifty copies available to collect.

The book also contains an essay by art writer and curator, Mary-Beth Laviolette. In her opening lines Laviolette writes, “Ten years ago, Erik Olson stepped into a room where the seeds of a new body of work were poised to germinate. A guest student of the renowned painter, Peter Doig, at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, the young artist remembers coming upon ‘an artistic space unlike anything I had experienced before.’ The room – thick with smoke and a fridge full of beer – was devoted to one of the more contested, argued about and censored art forms: life drawing. Then in his early thirties, Olson knew it simply as ‘the nude drawing room.’”

Thinking back on this time Olson recalls, “The vibrancy of the pastels and the ability to simplify the forms into pure colour struck me as a sort of creative energy rejuvenation at the time, a no pressure release of free flowing form.” The resulting works are classic Olson, expressive and bursting with colour.

On a subsequent trip home to Canada Olson brought back over 200 works on paper. In Laviolette’s words, “…these works on paper-NUDES-serve as an important link between the ambitions of a young emerging artist during his significant period in Düsseldorf and what has transpired since his 2022 return to Calgary.” Art collectors now have an opportunity to own a piece from this pivotal body of work, a drawing, a book, or both.

Olson earned a bachelor’s degree from Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2007). In 2014/2015, he attended the critically acclaimed art academy, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. In the fall of 2018, Olson’s works were featured in Cosmos, an exhibition organized by the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Canada. Olson has been the subject of solo exhibitions in major cities across Canada and internationally in Europe and the United States. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Alberta, the Royal Bank of Canada, The Toronto Dominion Bank and the Ivey Business School. Olson currently lives and works in Calgary.