Art by KAO, Kelsey Olson. I’m an artist from Grand Rapids area, Michigan, whose work focuses on chronic disability, grief, healing, and community building. Additionally, I have a BS in biochemistry that helps me expand my thinking in relation to art, a skill I’m starting to teach independently in late Summer of 2026 with small classes. Outside of painting I love to utilize creative writing including narrative, songwriting, and poetry. I play guitar and mandolin, have 2 cats, and love to spend time with my family and friends.
SymbiotiKels: Kels but greater than the sum of my parts. A feeling of connection within, driving a purpose together. (See: Symbiotic- “exchanging interactions, reliance”).
My inner cosmology is composed of parts. There are parts of me that equal my whole being. I balance them to equal myself. I choose to exist in a world where all of my parts can exist harmoniously, integrated, symbiotically, greater than the sum of my parts. Because I am whole. I am Kels. This is my art, my life, and my story.
I grew up in Midland, MI, playing hockey with my family, and attended college close by in Mt. Pleasant the Summer after my older brother had passed away, working at the hockey rink that he had also worked at. After my stay there, my partner and I moved to Traverse City for a few years where I worked in a pediatric doctor’s office, working the reception desk. I loved that job as it taught me many skills about the medical field, my own health, and helped so many people in the process. But TC wasn’t home.
So here we are near Grand Rapids, with the best chosen family I could have ever asked for. It’s not the path I would have expected, but it’s exactly where I aspired to be. I’m able to be openly myself.
I’m so proud of the progress I’ve made over my lifetime, especially over the last 15 years. Slow and steady, 1% at a time. Nonlinear, but progress nonetheless. We still aim upwards.
