Artist's Statement
My work is a responsive process to shape, color, texture and edges to create a cohesive whole.
Painting, drawing, or mark-making bring me moments of respite. I use a responsive process with expression to visually interpret the world around me. I primarily work in pastel because I appreciate its vibrancy. I also use other mediums or paint in oils to capture a variety of subject matter, including animals, landscapes, still life, or portraits.
-- Christy Olsen
About the Artist
Christy Olsen is an award-winning artist and fine art instructor. She is an active member of the local Tucson Arts Community and teaches studio art classes for adults at the Art Verve Academy. Her visual art skills developed in formal education, drafting, self-directed practice, experimentation, and tutelage under several contemporary masters.
She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, as a third-generation artist who grew up within a family of oil painters. They encouraged her to be creative and took her to multiple museums and notable art exhibitions that she remembers affectionately.
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When most university curriculums did not offer representational or figurative arts in the '90s, she chose to study the Old Masters via the classroom instead. She earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in Art History & Anthropology.
Christy is also a member of the last generation of drafters formally trained to draw with pencils on vellum paper before computer-aided design software. Her earliest professional drafting experience was meticulously hand-creating architectural blueprints and technical drawings. She's also had a successful career as a systems engineer and earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Computer Science from Arizona State University.
