Artist's Statement
Painting, drawing, or mark-making bring me moments of respite and I'm compelled to create. I primarily work in pastel because I appreciate its vibrancy.
Teaching hands-on studio adult art classes inspires me to try new things and I'm never done learning. I also work in inks, oil paints or use a combination of mediums.
Traditional realism, impressionism, or abstraction, I love a variety of artistic genres and will combine them to capture any subject matter that inspires me.
-- Christy Olsen
About the Artist
Christy Olsen is an award-winning artist, educator, and active member of the local arts community. She teaches adult studio art classes in Tucson, Arizona, at the Art Verve Academy. Her visual art skills developed through formal education, drafting, self-directed practice, experimentation, and tutelage under several contemporary masters.
She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, as a third-generation painter within a family of artists. Growing up, they encouraged her to be creative and took her to multiple museums and notable art exhibitions that she remembers affectionately.
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In the early 1990s, when most universities did not offer hands-on representational or figurative studio art training, Christy chose to study the Old Masters in the classroom instead. She earned her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degrees in Art History and Anthropology from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Before computer-aided design software, Christy was part of the last generation of drafters formally trained to draw with pencil on vellum paper. Her earliest professional drafting experience included architectural facades, blueprints, and technical drawings. She also earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in computer science from Arizona State University and has had a successful career as a systems engineer.
Her work has been published in several prominent magazines, including Southwest Art, Edible Baja Arizona, and Zócalo Magazine, and has been shown in multiple juried exhibitions, galleries, and selected solo shows across the United States. Her most notable juried exhibitions include the Porter Hall Gallery at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, the Best and the Brightest in the Scottsdale Artist's School Gallery, and Power of Pastels in Ironwood Gallery at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, where she also received an honorable mention award.
