Sedona’s Favorite Art Gallery and Gift Shop

Mixed media artist Bailey Olson will be the Featured Artist at the Village Gallery of Local Artists for the month of November 2024. A reception will be held on Friday, November 1st, from 5 to 8 p.m. to showcase her work. Olson will be present to discuss her art and explain her process.

Olson’s mixed media and digital renderings of nature views, including the Red Rocks, wild animals, and floral scenes, present their beauty in a fresh and trippy dimension. She paints with acrylics on surfaces such as canvas, and more recently creates digital illustrations of Southwestern landscapes.

Describing her process, Olson explains, “I can be very impulsive and obsessive with my art. If I get an idea of something I want to create, even if it’s something I have never done before, I have to make it and it’s all I will think about until it is done. . . Sometimes I will make the same thing twice, because you learn so much the first time and it will often come out even better the second.”

Olson holds degrees in ecotourism and adventure travel. Before pursuing art full-time, she worked as a tour guide and at a few different zoos across the country. She explains, “I am a self-taught artist, who began with watercolors in college around seven years ago. It was a way to play with color and create fun illustrations, like alien jellyfish hanging out with the little robot bug from [the film] ‘Spy Kids.’”

Her bold and whimsical style is demonstrated in a particularly personal image. “My favorite piece is an illustration of a man with a watermelon for a head, standing in front of the Grand Canyon. My husband was a hiking guide there for a while and his favorite thing to do was to bring a watermelon in his backpack and randomly bring it out as a surprise. Everyone always loved it, and he gave out slices to random people on the trail. I created it for him as a joke and ended up really liking the surrealness of the end result, almost like an ‘American Gothic’ interpretation.”

As to the most challenging piece she has ever created, Olson describes her digital illustration of Devil’s Bridge. “It is the latest of my illustrated prints and I found it challenging to capture the energy of such an iconic spot in Sedona,” she explains. “It took around a year of returning off-and-on to complete.”

Collectors and clients often mistake Olson’s works on canvas as prints—not so. “They are all 100% original paintings,” she confirms.

The public is invited to meet Bailey Olson, view her work, and discuss her process from 5-8pm on Friday, September 6th. Refreshments will be served. The Village Gallery is located at 6512 State Route 179, in the Village of Oak Creek, and is always accepting applications for unique art and new membership in our cooperative style gallery. For more information, go to sedonalocalartists.com or phone (928) 284-1416.