Ron Friesen

Ron Friesen is a Canadian painter and photographer located in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. He often paints in the Fauvist style, abstracting reality with emotion-triggering
interpretations of his subjects and their environments.
The creative process is complete only when the work connects the maker with the audience.
To this end, Ron Friesen paints and photographs only when he is driven by his passion, pain, joy, or the simple desire to communicate with others on an elevated level. He continually strives to capture bits of humor, beauty, and emotion from the sum of his experience and thrusts the
colors and images aggressively into their existence as images, often in an abstract context.
Ron was born and raised on the Canadian prairies during the mid-20th century. He was a musician, performing throughout Western Canada until 1978 when he turned to studio work and eventually established himself in a career of advertising, marketing, sales, and entrepreneurship to support his family. Ron moved to Vancouver in 1987 and decided to retire in 2016. He now works and plays full-time in his photography and painting studios.

Ron is an active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists.

As a young artist, I struggled to discern between inspiration and enthusiasm. Often, I felt compelled to produce a painting, anxious to do something, anything. I was seldom satisfied. But I have learned to better recognize the pulse of Inspiration and to more genuinely tune in and
enjoy the difficult process of extracting subjects.
Everyone has a unique and complex set of life experiences. Me too. Older now, I enjoy expressing myself and sharing bits from my overactive mind as much as I did when I was young and carefree.
My work seems to range from Fauvism to abstract expressionism to occasional attempts at realism. I work to reveal and hide the characters, places, symbols, and images from my time. I want my works to be fun and somehow ever-changing for those who look to engage with them.
At the same time, I strive for deep beauty.
Photography has been a constant in my life for nearly fifty years and I continue to keep up with
the technology to discover new ways to express myself with light, form, and context. I truly believe
photography is a legitimate fine art form when performed with this intention. In 2016 I lost the greater part of my eyesight. Through successful surgery and excellent
professional care, I have recovered my sight. Though it is now somewhat distorted. The experience of my brain attempting to make sense of lost form, distorted lines, and colors flowing somewhat irrationally left a great impression on me as an artist. I decided during recovery I
would return to my art full-time. And so, it is.