Growing up at the dawn of “new media” Oli has always been comfortable crossing between and blending creative fields. In elementary school he began publishing his own independent magazines, where he gained early knowledge of desktop publishing and graphic design. As emerging tools were born for creative media authoring on the computer, Oli’s interests expanded to multimedia, web design and digital video.

While attending the ‘Claude Watson’ art program at Earl Haig Secondary School as a visual arts major, he involved himself in numerous projects to build these skills. There he developed and released Canada’s first CD-Rom ‘yeardisc’ in grade ten, documented his entire school in an elaborate QuickTime VR walkthrough, and created numerous prototypes for CD-Rom projects of his own such as the interactive 3d Children’s title “the Adventures of Parsley Man”. Working freelance on the side he also completed various design projects for companies ranging from Alliance Communications and Mövenpick Restaurants to Packard Bell NEC.

Oli’s interest in Fine Art also blossomed while at Claude Watson, where he found a receptive atmosphere to his explorations in the mixing of digital techniques with more traditional and painterly forms. Oli began building his art career outside of class, exhibiting his fine art in group and solo shows from the age of 16. Early opportunities, such as participation in the SVA’s Digital Salon in New York and Madrid, as well as the TOAE at home, and solo shows at Toronto’s East Queen Gallery helped lead to recognition for his work. In 1998 Oli was awarded the national YTV Achievement Award for visual art, later Oli was recognized through the Toronto Arts Awards protégé honours, and media attention such as a feature spot on TVO’s Studio2 soon followed.

Frustrated by the slow pace of York University’s Fine Art Cultural Studies program, and eager to get on with things, Oli left to join Toronto new-media company Bitcasters as Creative Director at age 19, where he helped build a brand recognized for its innovation and quality of work. Through this role he was responsible for the design and development of projects for major clients around the globe such as Miramax, Universal and Sony Music.

As always Oli persisted with a range of creative projects of his own such as making electronic music and publishing his first book “the Moral of the Story”. He continued to paint throughout this time, and in 2001 his fine art was spotted by the art director for Sony Music Canada. Oli landed the job of creating a comprehensive body of original packaging for Canadian recording artist “Our Lady Peace” for their album “Spiritual Machines”. Based on the quality of work he was asked to create a music video for the track “In Repair”, an experimental animated piece that took the style of the album artwork and brought it to life through animation and stylized live motion. The work’s innovation met with much acclaim, garnering 2 Juno Award nominations (for both the video and packaging) and 6 MuchMusic Video Award nominations - 3 of which it won including best director, best post production as well at the best video of the year award. It was also screened at SIGGRAPH.

Oli continues to produce animation and direct experimental music video projects while persuing his own fine art, graphic design and music endeavours in Toronto.

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