"Architecture of the Face" - Works by Erik Olson

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"Matt"

Erik Olson, "Matt", 2012, oil on canvas, 48" x 36". Image Courtesy of Artist.

Erik Olson’s work explores the nature of perception in the painted portrait. With thick, sweeping brushstrokes of rich and boldly coloured linear fragments of paint, Olson’s faces crystallize into a frenetic whole.

Referencing cubism, Olson provides viewers with multiple abstracted vantage points of his sitters’ faces, revealing a structural quality to their arresting expressions. Olson’s interest in ‘that which hold things together’ calls attention to the expansive possibilities of perception, and his painterly approach to the surface of his canvas underlies his careful study of perception in the architecture of the face.

Olson received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2007. He has exhibited at Art Toronto, the National Portrait Gallery in London, UK, and the Art Gallery of Calgary. The Douglas Udell Gallery is pleased to open Architecture of the Face, our inaugural exhibition of the work of Erik Olson.