James Michael Ostlund

I feel fortunate that in my lifetime many gifts have come my way for which I am grateful, but none more than an early instinct to create art. This longing has inspired and guided me since I was young boy growing up in Minnesota. At the age of 12 I enrolled in "The Art Instruction School" a correspondence art program which opened my eyes to the various disciplines that art had to offer. I then followed this with two years at a Technical College in Minneapolis studying commercial art while in the evenings, benefiting from the open life drawing sessions held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It was here that I became enamored with the complexity of figure drawing. 

I later enrolled in the American Academy of Art in Chicago and entered the fine art department, concentrating the next three years on figure drawing and painting both oil and watercolor.  Following my studies at the Academy I painted at Chicago's storied "Palette and Chisel Club of Fine Art" where I continued working with the live model as well as obtaining a studio in which paint from.  As I continued to follow a path that was leading me towards the fine arts I felt I needed to continue my training. This desire led me to the studio doorstep of Richard Lack and Atelier Lack, a lineage of training that passes through the reputable Boston School of Painters and traces back through  the 17th century French Ateliers. His four-year program began and ended as an earnest and intense study working directly from life, which shaped my vision while instilling discipline utilizing the techniques from the masters that came before us. This training became the cornerstone to guide me on my journey as a fine artist.  

Jim Ostlund

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