Touch of Arsenic. Sketching the Past by Arne Roosman

Arne Roosman is a lithographer, designer of books, stage sets, and murals, as well as an illustrator and a painter.

“Touch of Arsenic. Sketching the Past by Arne Roosman” is a retrospective of Arne’s childhood. He was just a boy when Russia invaded Estonia. He fled Estonia in 1941 with his parents and seven brothers and sisters to Germany, where they stayed throughout the war. He was eight years old.

Arne was born in Tallinn, Estonia and studied art in Sweden. Roosman came to Canada in 1957. Arne has lived and worked in Bancroft, Ontario as a freelance artist for over 25 years. He is well-known and highly respected in the Northern Ontario region where he has had numerous exhibitions. He has also exhibited in other regions in Canada as well as overseas. Arne’s style is unique and diverse; he usees a variety of mediums. He is the winner of many awards and commissions and his painting can be found in local and international collections. Arne is a member of the Society of Estonian Artists in Toronto and has taken part in their exhibitions.

Arne’s Artist Statement

“I see myself as a teller of tales, with a brush for a quill, sometimes bending ancient myths to suit my worldview. My output is spontaneous, drawing a passion, oil my preferred medium. Never found nor did I get stuck in what much art is about, a style, a convention or the unconventional. Far from suffering the agony of Sisyphus, I am a drifter, happily pushing little round marbles up the slope of my slice of eternity.”