Biography

M. (Margaret) Pettee Olsen, (b. 1963 – Rochester, New York), received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and MA from Columbia University. M. began her creative life in dance and visual art. Invited to dance with the American Ballet Theater as an understudy, M. ultimately pivoted to focus on painting. As a young artist in New York, she was instrumental in establishing the lithography press, Oberon Press Ltd NYC, in Tribeca, as founding curator. Since its founding, M. has cultivated a three-plus decades career in painting. Her paintings have been described as ”mutable perceptual events,” by art historian Stephanie Grilli, Yale PhD. Informed by abstract traditions, M. ventures into new territory in painting with the latest developments in pigments and a sensibility that taps the tone and tenor of our times. Career highlights have been published in Artforum and Art News. The press has also received the artist positively in Westword — A Village Voice publication, The Denver Post, The Providence Journal, Art New England, and others. Pettee Olsen has recently been in residence with Michael David, M. David & Co., Brooklyn, NY, (2020), is a fellow of the Ucross Foundation (2019), and has received numerous awards, including an Artist Grant from the Rhode Island School of Design.

M. Pettee Olsen is a fully engaged participant in the current art scene with previous inclusion in symposia, interviews, and recorded podcasts.  M. Pettee Olsen’s work is included in private collections internationally. The artist maintains studios near the Flatirons of the American West and in New York’s Hudson Valley.