Dennis Ekstedt (Canadian, Born 1961)
Dennis Ekstedt (Canadian, Born 1961) is a painter who lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. He received his Diploma in Fine Arts in 1986 from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, B.C and his M.F.A in 1993 from Concordia University in Montreal. He was the Eastern Canada winner of the RBC Canadian Painting Competition in 2002 and his paintings are included in many public, corporate and private collections in Canada and internationally. He has exhibited in Canada, France, United Arab Emirates, and the U.S. and has received artist grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Quebec. His work is included in the publications Carte Blanche Vol 2-Painting (2008) and The RBC Painting Competition: 10 years (2008).
In Ekstedt's paintings, he depicts the dramatic and ethereal luminosity of electric light found in illuminated interiors, landscapes, and architectures. He does this through layered compositions of lights and luminous forms that are both figurative and abstract. In many of Dennis's paintings, he depicts vast sprawls of electric light that represent humanity’s presence on the landscape. To Dennis, the networks of electric light in these landscapes resemble nervous systems. Dennis is fascinated with how these nervous systems of electric light are traces of human presence on landscapes that are literally electrified by human habitation.
