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| Olga Krimon - Blue - 14 X 11 in. |
After graduating with honors from the Kazan Art School in Russia, Olga Krimon decided she would relegate art to a hobby, rather than pursue it as a career. Instead, Krimon attended Odessa State University in the Ukraine, where her skills in English enabled her to win a prestigious language competition, and travel to the United States as an exchange student. She was offered a full scholarship after her first year in the U.S., and graduated in 1994 from Davidson College, North Carolina. Although her degree was not in art, she had never forgotten her love for the field, and during her years at Davidson, she continued to study art history, and practice her skills on her own time. Krimon's career since then, excluding a year spent working at Sotheby's Auction House in New York City, has had little to do with art.
In her mid-thirties, though, Krimon's attention seriously turned to art again. Jeremy Lipking's paintings became an inspiration for her, and a workshop with Lipking eventually led her to taking courses at the California Art Institute, where Lipking had also received training. She currently spends many nights and weekends building up her portfolio of paintings, which can be seen on her website.
This painting, which won a Certificate of Excellence from the Portrait Society of America, and will also be exhibited at the Oil Painters of America National Show in May, is of the artist's older son, Casey. "It started as a sketch because I liked the simplicity of the pose," says Krimon. "I primarily concentrated on the silhouette against the background, getting the edges exactly right, and making the shirt turn without showing too much. Some areas of the shirt morph into the background, and I exaggerated that connection."
"I paint my sons a lot because I know them so intimately. With Casey, especially, he has the gaze - and the attitude - that I hoped to convey. Cautious not to make it a portrait of a specific child, I was drawn to the universal qualities, and to the abstract qualities of the paint, designing the thick/thin areas, and working on the movement of the body and the variations of the shirt fabric."
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4 comments:
I've enjoyed looking at your blog regularly. However, I have wondered why you have never made any reference to the Australian top art prize for portraiture, The Archibald, now in it's 90th year.
Great..i see your blog daily and like so much ..a lot of carefully selected artists webs now introduced ...
@veedham - This is the first time I've posted about the BP Award, and I did so only because I was surprised to see a work that was so deeply routed in academic art on the shortlist. Frankly, the BP Award, The Archibald, and America's own Outwin Boochever often frustrate me to no end! The judging seems to focus on intentional diversity in these events, rather than on any true criteria for analyzing the work. This is why I am always so fascinated by the People's Choice Awards in such competitions; the public tends to vote for what they like, rather than what would make good headlines.
I am struck by the complexity of this painting by Olga Krimon. It captures a certain defiant pout that is so specific to Casey's mood yet also a universal child's reaction. What an amazing artist!
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