Color Fields | Chad M. Olsen

Opening Reception: March 20th, 2026 from 5-8 PM

Chad M. Olsen: Color Fields

This body of work is a celebration of color, abstraction and my oil painting process. This feels like an awakening. It took time, curiosity, labor, belief, and my predecessors to reach this moment.

In the 1950s and 60s, a new form of abstract painting emerged, characterized by large areas of flat color as its subject matter. The Color Field movement inspired artists to push painting to new possibilities by experimenting with paint application. This led to breakthrough techniques like staining the canvas, which allowed the natural elements of paint to create abstract compositions. In a way, you could say I’m continuing what they started. I use mineral spirits to pool, blend, and thin pigment—sometimes in a single layer on transparent surfaces, and other times in multiple layers on canvas.

My pursuit is simply to see what happens in the studio. Color Fields (blue) and Color Fields (blush) were born from my curiosity about pairing two colors together and seeing what happens when they connect and interact. Most of the paintings focus on basic color relationships: primary colors, complementary colors, warm colors, cool colors, etc. An unexpected hero color in the show is blush, a muted pink that, on its own, seems unremarkable but, paired with other colors, becomes unexpectedly enchanting.

This show is a complete installation; each individual painting is in dialogue with the others. I am in conversation with them, listening closely to what they are trying to tell me.

Artist talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NFl8XARROM