drew klassen

Drew Klassen was born in Toronto in 1964, (mis)spent his youth in Winnipeg, and in 1986 went to Halifax to study drawing and sculpture at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. Following his graduation, he continued making art while supporting himself by varied means, including residential design, cooking, and teaching English as a second language. On his return to Halifax from Tokyo in 1998, Klassen established a full-time studio practise, alongside which he taught representational methods at the Dalhousie University School of Architecture, and drawing and painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.

From 2001-2007 he taught representational methods and theory at the Dalhousie University School of Architecture, and from 2006-2010 he taught painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. His work is held in numerous private collections in Canada and abroad, and in a number of corporate and institutional collections, including the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. In 2010 he received one of five Established Artist Recognition Awards presented annually by the government of Nova Scotia.