Eric J. Olson
Originally from Tacoma, Washington, Eric Olson is a self-taught artist. After graduating from Seattle University with a degree in Computer Science, he worked as an art teacher specializing in large-scale public art installations. His personal work often mirrors his life-long relationship with technology and science and its conflict with art and nature. It is this tension between order and chaos and between literal and figurative that animates his art.
Olson’s paintings occupy a world where “inanimate” objects are imbued with life and transformed into kaleidoscopic images of blurry photographs, half-remembered and half-rendered. Here we find worlds that are populated by vague memories of landscapes are peppered with carnivorous, metallic pre-historic creatures. Silly, strange, and sometimes “unworthy of serious consideration”, the charm of Olson’s work lies in its innate rebellion against stylistic straightjackets. Unfettered by history, it flirts constantly with natural and unnatural disasters.
Olson thrives on his intimacy with urban landscapes and their inhabitants, commenting on modern industry and society. He has always been strongly inspired by his immediate surroundings and, at times, overwhelmed by them. The foundation of his growing body of work is rooted in his strong emotional connection to the inevitable rise and fall of unchecked urban development. Modern and forward-thinking, yet regressive and irreverent, this complex body of work offers us a “mature” way of building mythologies and mysteries.
Our physical environment is built upon histories that have shaped our surroundings and our own reality; however, it is incomplete without interaction and introspection. This environment is close to Olson’s heart, he morphs into his reality and reconstructs it for further interaction.