Carl Oltvedt
Carl Oltvedt is working as an artist full-time, following his retirement as a Professor in the School of Visual Arts at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He has worked as a guest artist in regional schools as well as abroad at the Glasgow School of Art and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Scotland. Oltvedt’s paintings and drawings are included in the permanent collections of the Rourke Art Museum, Plains Art Museum, Honolulu Academy of Arts, North Dakota Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Minnesota Historical Society.
He received a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Fellowship in 1991, a Lake Region Arts Council/McKnight Fellowship in 2002, and a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant for fiscal year 2014. He is represented by Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis, MN. A significant portion of his creative work is done in direct response to the landscape. Carl uses his own photographs as supplementary reference material when issues of bad weather or the scale of a particular work come into play. The landscape of Minnesota – particularly near Mantrap Lake, Sugar Lake, the North Shore of Lake Superior, and some of the urban parks in the Twin Cities – has been the principal focus of his visual work during the past five years.
Perhaps it is his northern European heritage, as he feels deeply connected to the light, textures, colors and contrasts of open and confined spaces experienced in those landscapes.
His process begins with taking walks to engage his mind and experience the environment as openly as possible. He may return to places where he has previously found subject matter, but most often he walks without a specific site in mind and will look until he is moved with potential of form and expression suggested by a subject in a particular light. Proceeding, he considers the specific shape and scale that would best meet the needs of his expressive intent.
Drawing in his sketchbook with graphite, watercolor or pen/ink aid him as he moves through this process. Ultimately, he strives to create a work that reflects his most intimate feelings about the experience of being in that place.
