Oli Goldsmith

Born in Toronto, Canada in 1979

Olis Goldsmiths modern-day combines merge advanced digital output and transfer processes with paint, ink and other traditional media.

He eagerly experiments with varied techniques often combining old with the new and creating new hybrid forms in the process. Crisp digital line art, found and sampled photography, iconography and text, invented catch-phrases, drawings and poetic ramblings layer with expressive painting and drawing to create a distinctly rich, colourful and energetic style.

Early inspiration came from media studies; his work is a reflection of our information saturated society where media bombard us all constantly and often subconsciously. Interests in language, communication and iconography are significant influences to the scattered fragments of image and text that populate his paintings.

These often chaotic compositions have a through the looking-glass element of reflecting patterns of our media landscape while transporting viewers into an alternate and intensely personal world of the artist.

Disparate and often bizarre elements combine and play off one another in surprising, provocative and often humorous ways. How the mind plays into subtext and ...

Growing up at the dawn of new media Oli has always been comfortable crossing between and blending creative fields. In elementary school he began vpublishing his own independent magazines, where he gained early knowledge of desktop publishing and graphic design. As emerging tools were born for creative media authoring on the computer, Olis interests expanded to multimedia, web design and digital video.

While attending the Claude Watson art program at Earl Haig Secondary School as a visual arts major, he involved himself in numerous projects to build these skills. There he developed and released Canadas first CD-Rom yeardisc in grade ten, documented his entire school in an elaborate QuickTime VR walkthrough, and created numerous prototypes for CD-Rom projects of his own such as the interactive 3d Childrens title the Adventures of Parsley Man. Working freelance on the side he also completed various design projects for companies ranging from Alliance Communications and Mvenpick Restaurants to Packard Bell NEC.

Olis interest in Fine Art also blossomed while at Claude Watson, where he found a receptive atmosphere to his explorations in the mixing of digital techniques with more traditional and painterly forms. Oli began bui...