Rune Olsen is an accomplished sculptor and installation artist born in Norway. Currently living in New York, he is a 2009 fellow in Sculpture from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Since his first solo show in 1997 at Young Artists Association in Oslo, Norway, he has exhibited widely in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. and Europe, including Bronx Museum of The Arts, Islip Art Museum, Jones Center for Contemporary Art, Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Smack Mellon and Exit Art. His life-size sculptures of people and animals, which examine the interplay among desire, power structures and society, was exhibited in the 2005 Istanbul Biennial and included in 2006 at Hillwood Art Museum’s Archival to Contemporary: Six Decades of the Sculptors Guild. In 2007 Rune Olsen had a critically acclaimed solo show with Samson Projects in Boston. In 2008 he was included in The Drawing Biennial at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo.

Since graduating from the prestigious Goldsmith College in 1999 in London, Rune Olsen has won over 12 awards from The Norwegian Government, including the Emerging grant in 1997, the Establishing grant in 1999 and from 2003-2006 a distinguished Three-year work grant for young and emerging artists. He was in 2005 awarded the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship and a studio residency with Artist Alliance. In 2006 Rune Olsen was granted a place at the renowned Art Omi International Artists Residency and in 2009 the Sculpture Space residency. His work has been reviewed and the subject of articles in Art in America, Art-Forum, and Sculpture Magazine. In 2008 Rune Olsen teamed up with 12 scholars - creating five new sculpture groups for the pioneering exhibit The Sex Lives of Animals at The Museum of Sex in New York.