Collection C0055 - Collection of constructive art

Ron Kostyniuk was born in 1941 in Wakaw, Saskatchewan. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Biology) and Bachelor of Education from the University of Saskatchewan in 1963 and taught biology in senior high schools in Brandon, Manitoba and Edmonton, Alberta until 1968.

Kostyniuk began exploring the Constructed Relief as a form of art expression in 1963 and later enrolled in an art program at the University of Alberta 1967/1968. He submitted his work in juried exhibitions and won a prize for "Relief 1968," and was awarded a Canada Council Arts Bursary in support of research into the "constructed relief" idiom.

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1970 with a Master of Science, and in 1971 with a Master of Fine Arts, Kostyniuk was appointed to the Department of Art at the University of Calgary. He was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Art in 1975, and in 1978 Kostyniuk was appointed External Affairs Foreign Exchange Scholar (Canada-USSR) and awarded a Killam Resident Fellowship at the University of Calgary to complete work on the his monograph "The Evolution of the Constructed Relief, 1913-1979." Kostyniuk was appointed Associate Professor in 1978 and Full Professor in 1984.

Kostyniuk's solo exhibitions have taken place in Calgary, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Grande Prairie, and internationally in Chicago, New York, and Lviv, Ukraine. His work has been displayed world-wide in other exhibitions including India, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Greece, and Hungary.