Tim Olson is an artist who was born in Marathon, Iowa in 1962. He has worked as a groundskeeper, a bookstore clerk, a factory worker, a printer of obscene valentine photographs and other glamorous jobs. Although he grew up in Iowa, for twenty years he lived in Los Angeles and Chicago. In 2002 he moved to Dubuque with his wife and son.
I started this series of drawings with the idea of creating a set of alternative postcards, parodies of tourist-friendly artwork and cards picturing familiar scenes. In fact, the title of the series—Authentic Dubuque Scenes—comes from a stamp of authenticity sometimes found on the back of scenic cards—“Authentic (your city, state or institution here) Scene”—printed vertically, dividing the section designated, “this space for writing messages,” from the section designated, “this space for address only.”
The first drawings connected with this postcard idea started with a specific story line or joke (for instance the idea of inserting a domestic disturbance into a scenic view of the city). However, as I began to look at Dubuque and to build up a stock-pile of photographs to draw from, I became less interested in fictional, cartoon subject matter, and was instead drawn to both the visual beauty of Dubuque and to the incongruities created by years of building, erasing, and re-building its parts—one time for reasons of utility, one time for reasons of aesthetics, and other times for reasons impossible to fathom. I started to explore the parking lots, industry, and plots of urban no-man’s-land left by a city expanding outward, leaving its center stretched paper-thin.
For me the best idea is rarely the first idea—it’s much more likely to be the thirteenth idea. The struggle of working out ideas of composition, color and line, one on top of one another, all while trying to retain a high level of clarity, plainly shows in the finished drawings and paintings. In some ways that struggle becomes the drawing style. What is that style? Cartoon-Expressionism? Naïve-Academic? Picturesque-Messiness? All of the above? I’m not sure. But I do think, in the end, these drawings and paintings will make a nice set of postcards.
BA, Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa
2004
Authentic Dubuque Scenes, Visitation Art Gallery, Dubuque, Iowa
2005
Tim Olson: Drawings and Photographs, Rocco Buda Gallery, Dubuque, Iowa
2006
Drawings from 2005, Stone House Gallery, Galena, Illinois
2004
Annual Juried Exhibition, ArtCrave Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
Looking for America, Washington Gallery of Photography, Bethesda, Maryland
Works on Paper, Prairie State College Christopher Art Gallery, Chicago Heights, Illinois
2005
Drawing Conclusions—A National Juried Competition, MFA City Gallery, Baltimore, MD
Artistic Urbanism, Online Juried Show at art.com
The Mighty Midwest Biennial 2005, New Visions Gallery, Marshfield, Wisconsin
2006
The Nude International 2006, Lexington Art League, Lexington, Kentucky
(Artist Of Special Merit award)
The Greater Midwest International XXI, Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, Missouri
Seventeenth National Juried Exhibition, Viridian Artists Inc, New York, New York
2006 Curated Exhibition, Chicago Arts District Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
60th Juried Exhibition, Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, Iowa
