M. (Margaret) Pettee Olsen (b. 1963, Rochester, New York) is an American artist known for her pursuits in painting that continue apace today.
From 1978 -1982, Pettee Olsen studied dance under Marina Vronskaya, earning her an invitation to understudy for the corps de ballet of the American Ballet Theater. Soon after, upon seeing a show at the Albright Knox (AKG) Museum in Buffalo, New York, with its extensive collection of abstract paintings, she subsequently relinquished her nascent dance career to enroll at the Rhode Island School of Design. At RISD, Pettee Olsen was introduced to Susan Rothenberg, with whom she had a studio visit, and whose concerns with motion and nuanced psychological states in painting resonated with the young artist.
After RISD, in 1997, Pettee Olsen moved to Manhattan, where she found work curating prints. Most impressive to her in complexity of printing methods were Frank Stella’s massive bas-relief prints, which influenced her thinking, as well as other large-scale projects she assisted in overseeing. Between 1989 – 1990, she became the founding curator at the now-renowned Oberon Press LTD, NYC. She was twenty-four at its founding. In 1995, a graduate of Columbia University, she taught on an ad hoc basis, devoting herself entirely to painting.
Painting is not about understanding.
A striking yet confounding painting — that’s of interest to me.
— M. Pettee Olsen
M. Pettee Olsen in her studio, Columbia University, 1994, photography by Jennifer Zitron
In the mid-2000s, living and working between the Flatirons of the Rocky Mountains and Connecticut, Pettee Olsen began pouring, spraying, and dripping paint onto the canvas surface, then tilting and slowly spinning the substrate, using gravity, as well as her brushes, partnering with the painting. By the mid-2010s, she increasingly imposed geometries, rectilinear and gradient bars she calls edits and redactions, as well as other manner of obfuscation on the painted surface. By then, she had begun to build the surface of her paintings with optically engineered paint, using brooms, textured rubber, brairs, fine art brushes, squeegees, spray bottles, spray paint, stenciling, and mono printing with everyday objects, causing the works to become increasingly diverse in visual language, from painting to painting, and developing consistency primarily within the contingencies of her wide ranging vocabulary.
By 2020, Pettee Olsen returned to her use of the broad paint brush, and increasingly narrowed her focus to the essential quality of the gesture and visual incursions which act as foil to them. She is focused on creating large-scale paintings that explore expansive, dislocated gestures in ambiguous space. Her movement and touch range from layered and lush to exquisitely fragile and softly gritty. The effects are paintings that flicker between surface and illusion — an irresolute quality anchored by the interplay between her subtly precise and vigorous hand. Created from a range of full-bodied, extemporaneous, and finely detailed choreographed moves, her work reads as a sort of poetic presencing. With over three decades dedicated to painting, Pettee Olsen has established herself as a significant contemporary voice
In her studio, M. Pettee Olsen (left) discusses her work with Susan Rothenberg (right). During this time, her paintings shift from figures in various stages of dislocation and dissolution to further abstracted gestures that replace illusions of the figure in space.
(Rhode Island School of Design, RISD VIEWS, staff photography, 1985,)
M. Pettee Oslen’s career highlights have been featured in Artforum and Art News, with additional coverage in Westword (A Village Voice publication), The Denver Post, The Providence Journal, and Art New England. Recent residencies include Michael David, M. David & Co., Brooklyn, NY (2020) and a fellowship from the Ucross Foundation (2019). She has received numerous awards, including an Artist Grant from the Rhode Island School of Design for an installation spanning the RISD campus and the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design. The artist has participated in museum and University shows at Columbia University (New York), The Rhode Island School of Design (Rhode Island), Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art + Denver Botanic Gardens (Colorado), The University of Florida, Orlando (Florida) The University of Denver (Colorado), and Vassar College (New York). M. Pettee Olsen remains actively engaged in the contemporary art scene, with symposia, interviews, and podcasts centered on her work and aesthetic concerns. She lives and works in Upstate New York.