Kelly Olshan is a NYC-based artist and arts manager whose sculptural paintings invite the viewer to navigate towards an unattainable place. She graduated Valedictorian from UNC Asheville with a BFA in painting, where her work is part of the University's permanent collection, and went on to receive her MA in Arts Administration from Columbia University. Her work has been exhibited nationally: solo exhibitions include Portals at Ground Floor Contemporary (Birmingham, Alabama), Reimagined Landscapes at Sean Christopher Gallery (Columbus, Ohio), and Perpetual Pursuit: Painting the Unattainable at Tucker Cooke Gallery (Asheville, NC). Group exhibitions include The Yard (NYC), Equity Gallery (NYC), Yashar Gallery (Brooklyn), among others. She serves as a frequent panelist for NYC Percent for Art Program, and on the NYC DOT Public Art Advisory Committee. In 2019, she was named an Emerging Leader by New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). As an arts administrator, she’s passionate about providing fiscal and professional development resources for creative practitioners. She's held programming and publishing roles at Americans for the Arts, Creative Capital, Art21, ArtForum, and Queens Council on the Arts, where she oversaw the organization’s Artist Commissioning Program, High School to Art School, and Professional Development initiatives, as well as authored How You Can Commission Art: A Step-by-Step Guide to Developing New Culture. She currently serves as a Program Officer, Career Advice and Training at New York Foundation for the Arts.
