Edmonson was born in 1960 and raised in Calgary and received his Masters of Fine Art from the University of Alberta in 1985. Upon receiving his degree, he traveled to Europe and lived in Italy where he studied the masters of the Renaissance. The artist has been painting for 20 years and has shown his work across Canada, the US and internationally in both commercial and public galleries. His earlier work included portrait paintings, and his Soviet Pangaea series depicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin wall. He moved into landscapes in the latter 1990s, where he took interest in the now infamous tar pits of Alberta, as well as the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles. That led to his archeological interpretation of the canvas, "somewhere amongst the dark matter of tar have been found the remnants of life forms, which act as a kind of physical symbol of how time displaces history and memory". In turn, he aptly named these paintings "fractured landscapes", inspired by geology and the history of the earth, fused with his own memory and imagination. The result resembles an archeological site, rendering the prairie landscape in layers of textural paint, and heavy varnish.

Collections
His paintings are seen today in many prominent collections including those of Microsoft, the Toronto Dominion Bank, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Alberta Art Gallery, the Glenbow Museum, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, the Nickle Arts Museum, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Alberta Art Foundation, the Carleton University Art Gallery, the Department of External Affairs, and the Albright College Museum.