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Latest Artist's Video:
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Artist Statement:
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Artist Exhibitions:
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Artist Galleries:
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Artist Reviews:
"Art, meanwhile, gets a modern
twist from Katrina Olson, an
up-and-coming artist who mixes
photography and computer
skills to fuse new
interpretations of
architecture and landscapes,
while giving the traditional
portrait a new look.
Even though she has also tried
her hand at an oil pastel and
acrylic...
Further Information
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Katrina Olson Biography:
| Biographical information for Katrina Olson can be found below. The artist may choose what information to display. Sometimes the artist chooses not to display personal information to the general public. |
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Age
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25
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| Gender |
Female
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| Status |
Married
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| Children |
3
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| Religion |
Spiritual |
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| Education |
Bachelor of Fine Arts |
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| Hobbies / Interests |
not provided |
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| Favorite Artistic Medium |
Photography Other
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| Favorite Arthistory Movement |
Conceptual Art - (1960 - 1975)
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| Favorite Visual Artist |
Cindy Sherman
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| Favorite Work of Art |
The Unititled Film Stills
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| Biggest Artistic Inspiration |
People, different environments/cultures and new ideas are always inspiring my work. |
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| Why Did You Become An Artist |
One side of my brain is stronger than the other. I think that was decided from birth. |
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| Your Personal Biography |
“Rouge Arabian Dancers” - Katrina Olson
“Almost everywhere you go you smell these heavy exotic perfumed oils on people as they pass by you. There is something so sensual and conservative about this culture that awakes every sense in your body being immersed in it.” - KO
Calgary artist and photographer Katrina Olson is not only an observer, but a traveler, and her new show “Rouge Arabian Dancers” is her latest interpretation of the places and people she has seen. After completing her BFA at the University of Calgary in 2004 (she is now nearly finished her degree in Film Studies), Katrina began her career as a working photographer and artist and has not looked back since.
Katrina’s work is both beautiful and provocative. She is drawn to the edginess and immediacy of fashion and travel, but looks for the underlying questions that accompany the surface of “beauty.” Some of her work is designed to subtly challenge the viewer: they may be observing something visually pleasing, but layers of meaning emerge the longer you spend with her work. Her art is created out of her need to interpret and question what she sees, but also to make the viewer think.
“Rouge Arabian Dancers” is a reaction to Katrina’s recent travels to the Middle East. Wonderfully unlike any place she had visited before, she found the culture much more opulent, diverse and complicated than she had expected. An article in the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star entitled “Did ‘Sex and the City’ Have to Stereotype Arabs?” by Carla Haibi was one of her inspirations for this show, and a quote taken from that article can help us see part of that connection: “Visual media are very powerful in conveying messages and should be taken seriously. When these messages are both entertaining and informative, they can help viewers understand their differences, a key ingredient for ultimately establishing common ground.”1 “Rouge Arabian Dancers” features images of beautiful belly dancers leafed in gold: they can be reduced to symbols of wealth and extravagance, a statement of cultural richness, or idealistic representations of beauty. It is for the viewer to interpret, much like people from either the East or the West can interpret one another’s cultures. Can we resist the impulse to reduce images to symbols and stereotypes? Can the women in these paintings be seen as sexually liberated in a conservative way? Those two ideas do not have to mutually exclusive, and that is one things Katrina Olson has found fascinating about the culture of the Middle East. As a woman, these questions are important to her in these works and other works she has produced in the past.
Taking the symbolism of the works in “Rouge Arabian Dancers” even further, Katrina’s use of the color red was intentionally provocative. Katrina explained this by quoting that “‘After the rise of socialism in the mid-19th century, red was used to describe revolutionary movements’, 2 . . . upon visiting Beirut this summer there was a sense that the country is right on the cusp of something revolutionary. . . ‘red is also the color of blood (good health) and sacrifice’ 2.” The black stripes also have a deeper meaning. Drawn from the “Victory over AIDS” flag, the black stripe is a reminder of the darker side of sexuality. The black stripe borders the bottom of the familiar rainbow flag, and it has been suggested that when a cure for AIDS is found, that black stripe should be removed.3 The inclusion of the black stripe is a commentary of how sexual power and symbology can invert from the beautiful to the frightening: all pleasurable things are accompanied by some sort of pain, all beauty with some sort of darkness. By associating her images with the “Victory over AIDS” flag Katrina has not only brought attention to the complex role of women in Middle Eastern society but the invisibility of homosexuals in that area as well. Often disavowed or considered to “inappropriate”, homosexuality in the middle east is just as complicated as traditional gender roles, sexual politics and woman’s rights.4 Katrina’s art asks us to question ourselves: as outsiders looking in, what do we see? How so we interpret these images, and what experiences inform our views?
“Rouge Arabian Dancers” is a show that began with a journey and the questions that came from it. The imagery demands that we think not only of what we see, but how we and our culture interpret both the beauty and what lies behind it.
- Jaimie Driedger
1. http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2010/08/07/115976.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT_movement)
http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/culture/black/index2.html
4. http://www.merip.org/mer/mer230/230_merabet.html
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