Olivia Kays
oliviakaysart@gmail.com
Drawing from her experience as a florist, Kays is a mixed-media painter who cognitively reframes perceptions drawn from daily life and intuition. Her practice embraces aesthetic sublimation, transmuting the difficulties of lived experience into material acts of care, where beauty and ornamentation respond to the complexities of everyday life by cultivating tenderness. Through painting, she extends the rituals of floristry into a process of visual cultivation, tending to color, form, and surface as living elements within each composition. Her works emerge through acts of arranging, layering, and transformation, creating cultivated environments in which beauty becomes a way of engaging with the emotional complexities of everyday life.
She is continuing her schooling and getting her Master of Fine Arts at the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting. Her work is currently spread throughout Indiana and Maryland for permanent displays and exhibitions.
Education
MFA 2025-Current. LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art
BFA 2022-2025. Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts, Purdue University
Internships
Fall 2025-Spring 2026: Graduate Teaching Internship, Undergraduate classes at Maryland Institute College of Art.
Spring 2025: Gallery Assistant, The Weather Station Gallery and Artist-Run Project Space.
Recent Exhibitions:
Ongoing
Featured Artist, Solo Wall Installations, Adee’s Tulips, Fells Point, Maryland.
Featured Artist, Solo Wall Installation, The Eleventh House Coffee, Lafayette, Indiana.
Featured Artist, Affogato Cat Cafe, Fells Point, Maryland.
Featured Artist, PermaVibe, Permanent Makeup Studio, Downtown Lafayette, Indiana.
2026
“OUT OF ORDER” Annual Benefit Exhibition and Sale 2026, Maryland Art Place Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland.
Digital Exhibition, “Summer 2026 Show,” Penn Journal of Arts.
Solo Wall Installation with Artwork Displayed Throughout Establishment, The Lobby by Greyhouse Coffee, Downtown Lafayette, Indiana. 2025-2026.
2025
LeRoy E. Hoffberger Graduate Fall 2025 Show, “What Use Is The Ocean,” Riggs & Leidy Gallery, Fred Lazarus IV Center, Baltimore, Maryland.
“Under 2500 Benefit Exhibition and Sale 2025," Maryland Art Place Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland. Purdue Senior Spring 2025 Exhibition, “Untitled,” Rueff Gallery, Pao Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
National Society of Arts & Letters Visual Arts Competition and Exhibition 2025, FAR Gallery, Bloomington, Indiana. Artwork: “Free In My Heart!” featured on promotional flyers.
Purdue Juried Undergraduate Exhibition 2025, Robert L. Ringel Gallery, Stewart Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. Awarded First Place in Painting.
Solo Display in Purdue University Art Office 2023-2025, Third Floor of Rueff School of Design, Pao Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
2024
Purdue Juried Photography Exhibition - 2024, Patti and Rusty Rueff Gallery, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
“Emptiness- 2024 (3rd Annual Exhibition and Promotion),” Biafarian, International Online Exhibition.
“Anti-War 2024 (3rd Annual Exhibition and Promotion),” Biafarian, International Online Exhibition.
“People - 2024 (2nd Annual Exhibition and Publication),” Biafarian, International Online Exhibition.
“Existence: Birth, Life, Death - 2024 (Annual Juried Exhibition, Promotion, Sales),” Biafarian, International Online Exhibition.
“Boundless - 2024 (Annual Juried Exhibition, Promotion, Sales),” Biafarian, International Online Exhibition.
“True Beauty - 2024 (3rd Annual Exhibition, Promotion, Sales),” Biafarian, International Online Exhibition.
“Still Life - 2024 (2nd Annual Juried Exhibition, Publication, Sales),” Biafarian, International Online Exhibition.
2023
“Indianapolis Art Center College Gallery Invitational Exhibition 2023,” Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, Indiana.
“HMVC Gallery [Unveiling The Layers] 2023,” Displayed in New York on Screens in Times Square, International Online Exhibition.