A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

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Olivia Petrides

Associate Professor, Adjunct

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Bio

Olivia Petrides, is a painter, illustrator, and Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 1985 and where she earned a Marion Kryzcka Excellence in Teaching Award in 2022. She received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2021; Illinois Arts Council Projects Grants in 2023, 2020, 2014, 2007; and the Margaret Klimek Phillips Fellowship in 2003. Petrides was awarded a Fulbright Grant to Iceland and an Artist Residency at the Reykjavik Municipal Art Museum in 1993. She revisited Iceland in 1994 on an American-Scandinavian Foundation Award. On Faculty Grants awarded in 1995 and 1998, Petrides returned to the subarctic North Atlantic, where she had residencies with the Faroe Islands Museum of Natural History. In 1999, she returned to Iceland. In 2001, with the support of the American-Scandinavian Foundation and a Faculty Grant, she traveled to Greenland. Petrides has been awarded other residency fellowships at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; Vermont Studio Center; the Roger Brown Studio; Yellowstone National Park and many residencies at the Ragdale Foundation. She has illustrated two volumes in the Peterson Field Guide Series, published by Houghton Mifflin Company and Princeton University Press, and four field manuals issued by Explorer Press and Stackpole Press. Her work is in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; US National Park Service, Wyoming; Hafnarborg Institute of Art, Iceland; the Illinois State Museum; the Field Museum, Chicago; the Brauer Museum, Indiana; and the Openlands Organization, among others.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

From the sublime to the technological, contemporary artists are reinventing the landscape genre and examining its relevance. This multi-level studio course provides an opportunity to explore individual perceptions of the natural world in light of current landscape painting narratives. There will be presentations and readings on issues pertinent to the landscape as subject.

Class Number

1892

Credits

3

Description

This course deals with painting plants, birds, reptiles and mammals. Botanical structure and basic anatomy are covered, as well as specific morphological information on textures, scales, feathers, and fur. Classes are held at the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Garfield Park Conservatory, the Chicago Botanic Garden (Fall Semester only) and the Field Museum of Natural History. We tour and work with specimens in the Field Museum research areas as well as work in the public collections. The most difficult part of this class is drawing a moving creature. Tackling this issue at the zoo enables the student to understand structure in the light of behavior and physical action. The importance of seeing and drawing live animals cannot be underestimated. Watercolor and gouache are used, so basic painting methods, color mixing, color layering and spatial dynamics are emphasized. This is an excellent class in which to improve observational skills. A point of departure for the course will be historical scientific illustrators such as Maria Sybilla Meriam, John James Audubon, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, as well as contemporary artists and illustrators like Walton Ford and Alexis Rockman. There is a new assignment each class, with many examples on an assignment sheet provided for guidance. There is a group critique every week, with discussion of how each student solved problems of accurate representation. Students are expected to have 10 excellent pieces by the end of the semester, to be presented at the final critique.

Class Number

1409

Credits

3

Description

This course deals with painting plants, birds, reptiles and mammals. Botanical structure and basic anatomy are covered, as well as specific morphological information on textures, scales, feathers, and fur. Classes are held at the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Garfield Park Conservatory, the Chicago Botanic Garden (Fall Semester only) and the Field Museum of Natural History. We tour and work with specimens in the Field Museum research areas as well as work in the public collections. The most difficult part of this class is drawing a moving creature. Tackling this issue at the zoo enables the student to understand structure in the light of behavior and physical action. The importance of seeing and drawing live animals cannot be underestimated. Watercolor and gouache are used, so basic painting methods, color mixing, color layering and spatial dynamics are emphasized. This is an excellent class in which to improve observational skills. A point of departure for the course will be historical scientific illustrators such as Maria Sybilla Meriam, John James Audubon, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, as well as contemporary artists and illustrators like Walton Ford and Alexis Rockman. There is a new assignment each class, with many examples on an assignment sheet provided for guidance. There is a group critique every week, with discussion of how each student solved problems of accurate representation. Students are expected to have 10 excellent pieces by the end of the semester, to be presented at the final critique.

Class Number

2089

Credits

3