Artist Statement

My art emerges from places within my soul that words cannot reach. Abstraction has become the language through which I express what is unspoken — feelings shaped by memory, exile, and transformation.

I came to this country as a Cuban immigrant, guided by the need to belong and to succeed. That discipline carried me through medicine and life, but it also built boundaries around the spontaneous and the playful. My art is where those boundaries dissolve.

My work has evolved from figurative explorations of identity to collages that hold the layered stories of women — the lineage of mothers and daughters, the beauty and decay of my homeland, and the long shadow of not belonging completely anywhere.

As a woman and physician, I have navigated the paradox of care and constraint. These tensions now find color, rhythm, and release in my canvases. Bright hues, layered textures, and shifting perspectives reflect both the innocence of a child’s gaze and the wisdom of lived experience.

Bio

Beatriz R. Olson is a Cuban-born physician and visual artist whose work explores the intersection of abstraction and magical realism, translating memory, displacement, and womanhood into vivid color and form. Her art is a dialogue between the precision of medicine and the intuition of creative practice, reflecting a life shaped by migration, cultural adaptation, and the pursuit of belonging.

Her artistic practice has evolved from early figurative studies and collage to vibrant abstractions inspired by childhood wonder, cultural memory, and lived experience. Olson’s solo exhibitions include Magical Realism (2014), Returning to Cuba (2015), Hope After Loss (2016), Havana Cuba: Beauty, Decay, Farce (2017), Mother Child Bond (2018), and several virtual series during the pandemic (2020–2021). In 2022, she presented Networks of the Soul at Five Points Gallery Annex (Torrington, CT). She has participated in numerous group shows, including Nasty Women (2017), Oceans and Birds (2017), Love Notes (2021, 2023), and Open Studios (2025). Olson is active in the New Haven arts community through City Gallery and ArtSpace.

She holds a BA from Barnard College and an MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Her work invites viewers into a space where memory, imagination, and emotion converge, creating a visual language that celebrates freedom and the complexity of lived experience.