About
Olaf Krassnitzky grew up in Vienna, Austria where he obtained a medical degree in 1968, and qualified as a specialist in internal medicine. In 1974, he emigrated to Canada and lived first in Toronto; as of 1987 in Ottawa; and since 2008, in Clarence-Rockland, just east of Ottawa. In Canada, he held various healthcare positions until 1987. He obtained a masters degree in anthropology from Carleton University in 1995, and then a PhD in sociology in 2000. In 2001, Olaf decided to follow in the footsteps of his father who had been a well known artist in Salzburg, Austria. Olaf started a career in visual arts. Olaf has been interested in the arts from an early age. The only formal arts education he received were two workshops in realist painting of figure and portrait, offered by the Realist Academy, Toronto, in 2009.
As a result of his academic background, Olaf is interested in the artistic representation of the human condition, in its social, technological and natural environments, as well as in the human ‘inner environments’: human sense-making of self, others and the environments, as well as the actions this sense-making governs.
The Artist
On Tour
In 1974, Olaf emigrated to Canada and lived first in Toronto; as of 1987 in Ottawa; and since 2008, in Clarence-Rockland, just east of Ottawa. In Canada, he held various healthcare positions until 1987. He obtained a masters degree in anthropology from Carleton University in 1995, and then a PhD in sociology in 2000. In 2001, Olaf decided to follow in his fathers footsteps, who had been a well known artist in Salzburg, Austria, and started a career in visual arts. Olaf had been interested in the arts from an early age.
Olafs preferred media are oil, pastel and charcoal, mostly on canvas or board. He has also works with collages and reliefs (concrete and gypsum). Besides his realist training, his techniques have been influenced by Kandinskly, Klee, Schiele, Klimt, and to a significant extent by his father.His works were also shown in the following galleries in Ottawa: the Cube, Gallery 7A, Electric Gallery, the Gallariart co-op, Galerie de la rive. A few hundred of his works, including many portrait commissions, can be found in private collections in Canada.
Events
Calendar of Events
Ottawa Alleyways Group Show, March 29 to May 1 2011, at Cube Gallery, 1285
Wellington Street West, Vernissage April7 2011, 6-9pm.
Glebe Fine Art Show, September 24-25 2011, Glebe Community Center, 690 Lyon
Street, 10am to 5pm.
Art in Strathcona Park, Saturday August 6, 2011, 10am to5pm, access from
Range Road (south of Laurier East)
Art Association of Clarence-Rockland (AACR), June 4 to June 5 2011, Paroisse
Tres Ste-Trinite, 2178 Laurier Street, Rockland Ontario, 10am to 5pm.
Art Association of Clarence-Rockland (AACR), July 22 to July 24 2011,
Community Hall Lucien-Delorme, 5000 Centre Street, Wendover, Ontario
(together with the Optimist Western Festival of Wendover)
To be confirmed: 2011 Orleans Festival, Shenkman art Center, June 3 to June
4 2011, 10am to 4pm, 245 Centrum Boulevard, Orleans (with free portrait
sketches by me)
2011 Ottawa Art Expo, October 28 to October 30 2011, (ottawaartexpo.com), St
Elias Center, 750 Ridgewood Ave (off Riverside, opposite Mooney's Bay Park)
