Award Winning American Western Artist Marlene Olson

Painting With Pixels

From paint, to pixels, to painting with pixels, Santa Cruz artist Marlene Olson integrates tradition and technology. Olson’s Painting With Pixels series are created using multimedia digital management systems and her limited-edition giclée canvases, papers, metals and acrylics are available in medium to large formats.

Olson began her art studies in Montana where she was greatly influenced by her Montana State University Professor Ben Steele, whose renowned charcoal-on-scrap-paper images of the WWII Bataan Death March have been featured in numerous publications and books. She continued her studies at the University of California Santa Cruz, with Hardy Hanson, Jack Zajack, Barbara Thomason, Mary Holmes and Robert Strini. Olson has worked in many mediums including watercolor, oil, acrylics, lithography, etching, pen and ink, and ceramics.

After graduating with a Fine Arts degree from UCSC, Olson pursued a career in journalism, which included crafting documentaries for NBC Magazine with David Brinkley, designing and producing non-fiction projects for TS Books, and serving as lecturer and director of Student Media at UCSC. Following in the footsteps of Andy Warhol, Olson began working electronically in 1986 using Ventura Publisher and later, CorelDraw. She now uses multiple software and hardware technologies, constructing each piece digitally while incorporating conceptual perspectives and incorporating skills of the traditional artist. Olson’s “Painting with Pixels” collection now consists of three series:

Prairie Prints – images inspired by the high prairies and big skies of her native home of Montana;

Seascapes – images inspired by the central coast near her adopted hometown of Santa Cruz and other national and international coastal locals;

Food is Art – images inspired while working on metropolitan agriculture projects, including books (MetroFarm), broadcast media (Food Chain Radio), web-based media (www.metrofarm.com) and project consultations locally as well as internationally.  Olson works in partnership with her husband Michael Olson.  Their partnership, MO MultiMedia, holds properties in print, broadcast and the Internet.

Awards:  2nd Place – (Pigeon Point); 3rd Place – (Davenport Beach), and an Honorable Mention – (Walton Lighthouse) from Santa Cruz County Fair Digital Fine Art; and a Merit Award from Central Coast Artist League at the Half Moon Bay Gallery.

Marlene Olson’s limited editions are signed and numbered with a Certificate of Authenticity.

Marlene Olson: 800-624-2665