by Nash Alonto
April 1, 2024
The walls inside the hall were decorated with paintings of forests, rivers, beaches, lighthouses, and flowers, as Olga Oresanya led visitors through her art exhibition.
Oresanya said she invested a lot of time and energy into planning out and creating art works for her exhibition.
“When you do something that you really like, time flies, you don’t really feel it. Sometimes, I will sit in a studio for a whole day, and I would not even notice how the day is gone already,” she said.
“I would paint every single day for a month, like just painting, not doing anything else.”
Oresanya has lived on P.E.I. with her family since 2019, but has been engaged in art since she was a young girl in Russia.
She recently hosted an exhibition called “My Beautiful Island” to officially debut as an artist at Carriage House in Charlottetown on Wed., March 27, 2024.
To create her art, she gets inspiration from her travels around the Island, as well as other places in the Maritimes.
“Whatever I paint, I have been to those places. When we travel, I take a look at beaches. I usually do a lot of sketches, and when I come back home, I already have it in my head an in my heart,” she said.
“I will paint what I see, I will say.”
Apart from acrylic paintings, Oresanya also does other types of creative works, such as ceramics and beads.
Around 50 people visited her exhibition, with 30 people visiting during the morning half alone, most of them friends and other acquaintances.
Michael Orode, a project management consultant based in Charlottetown, has been a long-time friend of Oresanya and her family since her days as an art teacher at a British school in Nigeria.
Last February, when Orode learned about her exhibition in Charlottetown, he and his family got excited.
“Oh, this is a great opportunity for us to see her large collection of art work,” he said.
When the Orodes came to the exhibit, he said they were pleased.
“(My family) know she is great at her field,” he said.
Orode also said art exhibitions like those of Oresanya’s are a big plus for the Island.
“We have more people coming in with such unique skills that we have to propagate the profession of (the) arts in Prince Edward Island,” he said.
Oresanya is also planning another exhibition in late June or early July of this year. She said there’s going to be more Island landscape paintings in her future exhibition.
“I love Prince Edward Island. I’m very happy here, it’s my happy place. Anytime when I go to the beach, it’s always looks different here…it just amazes me,” she said.
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