Color Fields Exhibition by Chad M. Olsen

By L. Kent Wolgamott

Color Fields, the title of Chad M. Olsen’s Kiechel Fine Art exhibition, could be a direct reference to the color field painters of the ‘50s/early 60s who clearly have provided some of the inspiration for the work. It could also be a sly reference to his “abstract minimalist landscapes.” Or it could be a description of Olsen’s working process, using paint and mineral spirits to create, in the case of this show, canvases covered with “fields” of colors, activated by brushstrokes and the contrast between color bands.

Those canvases can still suggest a landscape. “Beauty in Impermanence,” for example can easily be read as an ocean view with blue/black band topped by a blue field up to the yellow/orange of a sky. But its title reveals its true origin — in Olsen’s Buddhist practice, where the constant change of impermanence is a key element in its philosophy as is the notion of a “Shadow Self,” a large 60″ by 80″ piece of alternating pink and dark (black or blue) bands.

That pink, my guess is, is a variation of the “blush” that dominates a three-band piece, titled “Color Mirror (blush)” with a purplish center stripe between the two pinks, immediately calling to mind the work of Mark Rothko, with which Olsen’s work also shares a luminosity and spirituality.

“Color Mirror (blush)” is accompanied by a suite of six small paintings, “Color Mirror (blush) Palette,” each of the small squares displaying one of the colors in the large painting.

A similar palette presentation is available for “Beauty and Impermanence.” In “Color Fields (blue)” and “Color Fields (blush),” Olsen works on the transparent ground to make the piece entirely about the paint, its color and its handling. That is also the case with two stunning squares, à la Josef Albers, only painted on glass rather than canvas. “Cobalt Blue” and “Phthalo Green” looked great leaning against the wall on a gallery shelf and would likely be even better hanging from the ceiling.

I’m also guessing that “Forest Bathing (Shinrin-yoku)” a large blue/black/green canvas and “Forest Bathing (Shinrin-yoku) B-side” — which like a 45 flips the colors to pink and yellow are directly tied to Olsen’s use of the Japanese practice of walking in nature.

Olsen, a 2002 Lincoln Southeast graduate who moved to New York after receiving his BFA in 2010, returned to Nebraska a few years ago, and is now based in Kearney.

I’ve written about his work since his first Kiechel Fine Arts exhibition in 2018, watching it evolve from what were truly abstracted landscapes to the luminous, minimal abstractions that make up his strongest exhibition yet.