Ted Olson

MEDIUM: Oil Painting

ARTIST STATEMENT. Ted Olson brings his impressions of Western landscapes to life in oil paintings on panel. Striking presentations of luminous color, engaging texture, and subtle references to landforms create a rich exposition of abstract landscape. These subtle paintings call on a long tradition in landscape painting as well as the more modern trends in impressionism and abstract expressionism.

EDUCATION. Olson holds a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts, Painting) and a Master of Fine Arts (Visual Communications). Olson’s commercial career was based in technical communications, marketing communications, and graphic design and digital design.

PROCESS. As a studio artist, Olson’s works are generally made of two panels, each Baltic birch cradled on a poplar frame. The paint surface is prepared with two coats of gesso, then layers of oil paint are added. When the paintings are complete, the panels are joined through the cradles and framed.

FAVORITE QUOTE. Chuck Close answered in this way this when asked about his beliefs concerning the artistic process:

My first belief is that "Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will — through work — bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great art idea. And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you’ll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you did today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere.”

HOW TO LEARN MORE:

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