DANIEL OLSEN | DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH
SATURDAY 05 NOVEMBER 2005 – SATURDAY 17 DECEMBER 2005

OPENING RECEPTION | FRIDAY 04 NOVEMBER 2005, 8:00PM – 11:00PMPhoto credit: Cheryl O’Brien

Diamond in the Rough presents a selection of Olson’s videos from the past and the present. It is a video projection inspired by Saint Jeome in his Study (Antonello da Messina, ca. 1475), Le petit liseur (Ozias Leduc, 1894) and a 1984 self-portrait snapshop of the artist. In a stage set loosely based on Renaissance depictions of Saint Jerome (342 – 420 AD) the theologian, writer and hermit who made the first Latin translation of the Bible, known as the Vulgate – olson is seated at a desk, reading and writing. The scene also includes props and sound effects alluding directly and indirectly to the source images as well as other aspects of Olson’s life and work. The popular imagination has painted the solitary figure of the artist working in the studio as a mystical creature isolated in an act of romantic creation when, as Olson states, ‘Everybody knows art is just another desk job’.

DANIEL OLSEN is a visual artist based in Montreal. He has a diverse academic background, having degrees in mathematics, architecture and fine arts. His recent solo exhibitions include Twenty Minutes’ Sleep, Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver, 2005); Other Conditions, Modern Fuel (Kingston, 2005); Unknown Seventies Artists, Galerie TPW (Toronto, 2005); and I’m Not There (1955), Goethe Institute (Dublin, 2004). Olson has exhibited in group exhibitions such as Aural Cultures, Walter Philips Gallery (Banff, Alberta, 2005); Frottements: Objets et surfaces sonores, Musee national des beaux arts de Quebec, (Quebec, 2004); In Light (video projections by eight artists), Art Gallery of Ontario, (Toronto, 2004); and Promise, Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver,2001).

Featured in YYZINE: VOLUME 5, ISSUE 6