Artist Statement

Through painting and ceramic sculpture, Jade Olson explores a realm where imagination rules, and triumph coexists with failure. Growing up in poverty and religious cultism, while also suffering child abuse, art provided Olson with an escape from reality. She found solace in the narratives of superheroes, sentient robots, and iconoclasts, seeing them as symbols of power, hope, and inspiration. In Olson’s work, heroic figures are complex.  Colorful, large-scale paintings depict powerful champions engaged in struggle –  a group of sumo wrestlers spilling outside the ring in a struggle – or or in moments of self doubt and vulnerability –  a superhero breaking apart into an existential scream. Vivid reds and golds evoke passion and movement contrasting with the grays and blues of frustration.

Similarly, Olson’s sculptures of robots encourage the viewer to engage with the idea of what it means to be human, and to think about our relationship with technology. Working with ceramics and simple electronics, robot forms are given intentional limitations and exaggerated proportions. At 30” tall, their scale is unimposing.  The durable medium of ceramic removes their agency – they cannot move – and so they must invite the viewer’s attention with their facial expression.  Rather than being cold and precise, these robots are psychedelic, charming, smudged, ultimately inept, and hoping for empathy. Ceramics are glazed in colorful, painterly passages and then subjected to multiple firings. Glazes bubble, melt, and crack, spilling over the form, indicating both vibrancy and vulnerability.  Metallic parts are finished in gold and copper. 

Olson’s painted and sculpted figures refer back to Greek athletes depicted on ceramic jars and in marble, as well as to Haniwa figures and Congo power figures. “Self Building Robot” is a direct response to the Greek sculpture “Apoxyomenos.” Through her paintings and sculptures, she seeks to delve into the profound significance that superheroes hold in our collective imagination and their ability to transcend the ordinary, tapping into the universal human desire for strength, hope, and the power to overcome adversity.

Artist Bio

Born in Texas, and living in Boston, Olson obtained her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design.  She has exhibited locally and nationally, and is a Helen Blair Crosbie Sculpture Award recipient and Massachusetts Cultural Council grant recipient.

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