Else Olava descends from a long line of artists. She used to say that she had no choice in becoming an artist, that it was a combination of genetic predisposition, a lifetime of conditioning, and a survival instinct... It never occurred to her that she could be anything else because she had just always known that she was meant to follow in her ancestors footsteps. Even her name Olava was a sign of a fated path, an old family name with Old Norse origins meaning “legacy of ancestors” or 'the one who inherits''.
-Her mother Ann is a talented botanical illustrator and her father Jan is a skilled craftsman and engineer who dabbles in precision machining and photography.
-Her grandfather, CP Christianson, studied at Scripps College in Claremont, CA under Millard Sheets and Albert Stewart. He assisted in the creation of several public murals, including Bull Wall, a brick relief by Albert Stewart and John Edward Svenson at the LA County Fairgrounds (his initials can even be found on one of the bricks).
-Stanley Ledington, her great-grandfather, was an artist and composer, his wife Esther was a professional singer and botanical painter.
-Esther's mother was a Wærenskjold, a relative (3rd cousin 5x removed if we're being precise) of Erik Werenskiold, Norwegian painter and illustrator known for his illustration of Norwegian folktales, and his son Dagfin, a sculptor and painter.
-Eugène François Valin De Griselles, Else's 4th great-grandfather, studied art in Paris and served under Napoleon before emigrating to Iowa to teach art.
Else began her studies of art at a young age. Her childhood was spent creating art, visiting museums and galleries, spending time in local artist’s studios, even attending and participating in her mother’s college art classes at the age of five.
Her formal training began at the age of fourteen under the guidance of Harry Ahn, an award-winning and internationally recognized portrait artist. She studied painting and sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She moved back to California in 2001, eventually settling in Sonoma County where she began officially pursuing art as a career rather than just an obsession.Although formally trained in the classical realism style of painting, Else was also heavily influenced by the surreal doodles her father drew to entertain her. This led to an interest in the symbolist and surrealist movements of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and the psychedelic art of the 1960’s.
“I can’t remember a time when I have not loved the creative arts, especially the surreal, the melancholic, the blissfully flawed. I am drawn to the illustrations in classic children’s books for their ethereal idealism and the way they inspire the imagination.
I appreciate art that can transform the darkness of life into something beautiful, something that displays the artist’s scarred black underbelly yet still somehow evokes feelings of serenity and utter contentment, art that combines the elements of sacred symbolism with the imperfections of modern life to portray in a beautiful and physical rendering that which transcends and might inspire us to go beyond what we accept as reality.
If I go without creating something for too long I get this overwhelming compulsion, this feeling that everything is not okay, that I'm missing a giant part of myself unless I'm making art... It's another way to express what's inside my head, a language that I seem to be more fluent in than English..."