Brad Olson

Brad Olson is an Assistant Professor of Art Education and Graduate Coordinator for the MA in Art Education program at Eastern Illinois University (EIU). He holds a PhD, MA, and BA in Art Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), completed in 2015. His research focuses on visual culture, new/social media, community-based art learning, and playful pedagogy, as explored in his dissertation "DigArts: A Case Study of Digital Visual Culture, Teenagers, and Tensions in the Third Space".

Professionally, Olson has served as Education Programs Coordinator at Krannert Art Museum (2016–2017), Instructor at UIUC's Writing with Video program, and Director of the Digital Arts Workshop (2014). He co-directed the Summer Art Experience at UIUC (2009–2013) and taught as a Graduate Instructor there (2008–2011). As an artist, he blends traditional and digital media to explore intersections of popular culture, natural history, and technology, creating work that documents transitional spaces and evolving 21st-century worlds.

Olson's creative practice includes gig posters, music videos, album art, and animation, often collaborating with musicians and artists. His work emphasizes documentation and reflection on geographical and metaphorical transitional spaces, using illustration, photography, digital manipulation, collage, and animation.