Kristen Olson

Most importantly,
with our soul
we feel the sense
of a thing or place.
To stop and spend time soaking it all up. Taking in the small
and the large
in one breath.

Kristen Olson Biography

Kristen Olson grew up on the East Coast in a household of musicians. The sounds of music and the sights of museums and culture filled her childhood. She was always interested in art. Drawing and doodling as a young child, she was encouraged, maybe prodded a bit, to learn an instrument. Because of this background she has a deep personal connection between music and art.

Inspired by her grandmother, Olson has been painting since she was a child. Her parents, who were musicians, wanted her to become a violinist. Instead, she followed her passion for painting. She was introduced to California landscapes when she visited her grandmother in California. Her grandmother would take her on hikes in the Sierra foothills, and they would sketch and paint together. Studying music and playing musical instruments influenced how she sees rhythm in nature, she says. “Music, nature and art are (as) alike as they are different.”

Kristen primarily paints impressionist landscapes in oil, preferring Impressionism as it focuses on conveying the color of the light of the landscape or subject before her. It is the idea of a place and time, she wants to share with the viewer, a sunset at Monterey Bay, or pumpkin season in Half Moon Bay. Impressionist painting has an emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities, often accentuating the effects of the passage of time on common, ordinary subject matter.