kristastudios

11 May 2012

Breaking News...

WAX

MAY 19th - MAY 30th, 2012

The Brooklyn Artists Gym

168 7th St, Brooklyn, NY

Opening Reception:

Saturday May 19th, 6-9pm

NATURAL/

CONSTRUCTED SPACES II

JULY 17th - AUGUST 11th, 2012

The Painting Center

547 West 27th Street #500,

New York, NY

Opening Reception:

Thursday July 19, 6-8pm

14 Apr 2012

The Opening

I had a wonderful opening at the Watchung Art Center this month for my solo show, Penumbra, which is up until the end of the month.

See my previous post for hours and location. Part of what made the opening so great was seeing an old friend of mine who I hadn't seen since college. Tim was a great artist in college who turned out to be an even greater writer. The show was a moving experience for me, since it touched a very deep subject matter in my life, the loss of a friend. Like most artists, I was interested to see how people would perceive the show. Tim very kindly wrote about his thoughts and feelings about the work, in the process, offering me very keen insight. I was moved and amazed at how much of the emotion that I put into the paintings was able to be seen and verbalized in such an exquisite way.

Below are some excerpts from Tim Stapelton's writing, separated by panoramas of the show:

The pieces convey a sense of melancholy. The compositions are stable, evoking not the sharp edge of grief that we experience in the moments when an irretrievable loss is made real to us, but the melancholy that persists as we carry on.

The contours of these emotions cannot be precisely defined, and the pieces do not suggest this possibility. Rather, they seem to present a close-up view of something much larger, as though depicting structural details in the architecture of grief.

The bare facts of a particular circumstance—like the loss of one we hold dear—may be immutable, undeniable, unappealable, like the hard geometric figures. Yet they are imbued with something soft, living, animate. The white auras do not clash with the darkness, but are of a piece with it. Even the cold tones, the black ensemble, the stillness radiates a living soul. Even the darkness is beautiful.

26 Mar 2012

Penumbra:solo show

Krista Svalbonas, Penumbra

Watchung Art Center, NJ

April 1st – April 29th, 2012

Opening Reception April 1st, 1 – 4pm

The Watchung Arts Center will present an exhibition of new paintings by mixed media

artist Krista Svalbonas.

Krista’s paintings are easily recognized for their geometric nature, referencing the overlapping structure of the urban landscape. In this recent body of work, Krista explores death, loss and hope in her recent black series. After a tragic loss and a subsequent pilgrimage to the Franciscan Chapel of Portiuncola in Assisi, Krista began a series of paintings combining wax, graphite, charcoal and pastels in subtle hues of black. The paintings began as a slow and meditative reflection of loss, with each continuous layer of media creating a rhythmic experience of remembering. At first glance the works appear to be pure minimalism, but upon closer investigation, they reveal shifting colors, textured and slick surfaces, and a sense of depth and light. The paintings show a void of expansive darkness, but at the same time, they offer hope.

The Gallery will hold an opening reception on April 1st from 1:00 to 4:00pm.

Gallery hours are Wednesday by appointment, Thursday and Friday 12:00- 3:00pm

and Saturday by appointment. The Watchung Arts Center is located at 18 Stirling Road, Watchung, NJ.

25 Feb 2012

News from the studio

I just finished the last work in a solo show that goes up in April. It's the largest work I have done yet, measuring 4x5 feet. The piece itself is on paper as opposed to panel which I normally work on. This has had some benefits and some setbacks. The weight of the piece is quite light in comparison to panel which makes it quite easy to work on and move about the studio. I've had no issues using the torch or evenly waxing the surface, which was a point of concern in the beginning. My only stumbling block is finding a way to hang the piece in a way that compliments the rest of the show. All of the rest of my work is on cradled panels that are unframed, allowing the pieces to "float" on the wall. Typically with paper, I've used magnets or pin clips, a type of alligator clip method where part of the clip is stuck into the wall. Unfortunately this piece it a bit too heavy for those methods.

Right now I'm in the process of discovering some unique ways to hang larger paper works. I've experimented with a wooden frame that gets adhered to the back of the paper piece with velcro. This has had good results, but I'm investigating other methods. I'll be posting some of my studies in an upcoming blog post for those artists dealing with alternative methods of hanging paper work.

Below Anima 6 4x5, wax graphite, pastel on watercolor paper

21 Jan 2012

Ruminations in black

At VSC I finished a series of black paintings that I had been working on for months. I have one more large scale black work on paper that I am finishing now, which is approximately 40x60. All of these works will be on view at my solo show, Penumbra, at the Watchung Center for the Arts in April this year.

This is my first time working this large and in all shades of black. I started thinking about a black series after the loss of a friend last summer. As I started working on the series I remembered an exhibit I attended at the Guggenheim in 2008. The show was of a series of Ad Reinhardt's black paintings, one of which had been recently "dissected" with a new laser treatment specially formatted for colorfield paintings. Article here: Ad Reinhardt.Though some may say the paintings express nothing but the purity of form and color I couldn't help but be struck by the sense of emptiness that was contained within them.

Black work isn't a new subject by any means, but it seems to be a reoccurring palette. Joanne Mattera, artist, curator, blogger and author of " The Art of Encaustic Painting", noted in her blog of recent trends towards black at the Miami Art Fair this year, Joanne Mattera. Even more recently I was able to attend Byron Kim's exhibit of black paintings at James Cohan Gallery. Byron's paintings are his memories of the night sky. This took me back to the night skies that were represented in the Cathedrals throughout Tuscany. There is something about the vastness of black that seems to embody notions of existence, space and time.

Below Ad Reinhardt in his studio, a UV before and after photograph of Reinhardt's damaged painting, a view of the Rothko chapel, Byron Kim Untitled (for S. M), Byron Kim Untitled (for E. T), a view of the Cathedral of Sienna and Anima 2 and Anima 3 from my recent black series, 30x30, wax, graphite and pastel.

31 Dec 2011

Home Sweet...

After the 7 hour drive, I can't say I didn't feel relieved to lie down in my own bed and squeeze my much missed cat. VSC was an amazing experience and I had a wonderful and productive month there. After being home a few days, I already miss my Vermont studio. As a New York City based artist, lets just say that my studio tends towards the cramped and dark side. I miss my 12 foot ceilings and two large bay windows looking out to a river. A friend of mine, who had previously attended VSC a number of years back, said that his experience was unforgettable and he still keeps in touch with people he met at the center. I feel the same way and was truly grateful and happy to meet the community of individuals at VSC. It feels like staying in touch won't be hard. Art making can be such a solitary practice and it was good to feel like part of a larger family of like-minded individuals. Below are a few photos generously provided by Howard Romero, the staff photographer at VSC. Howard has photographed innumerable amounts of resident portraits both in and out of their studios.

8 Dec 2011

Ice sculpting

Along with December celebrations here in Johnson, some of the VSC residents took a day to make ice sculptures. See the photos and videos below.

5 Dec 2011

Windows on Columbus

Recently, I was asked to be a part of a two-person show for the Windows on Columbus Exhibition series in Jersey City. My work was installed this week and will be up until the end of February. As an artist based in Jersey City, I'm really excited to be a part of this program. Below you will find a shot of the exhibit and the press release.

Click here to download:

press_release.pdf (1.21 MB)

2 Dec 2011

Open Studios at VSC

Yesterday we had our first open studios tour. It was fantastic! Though many of us have only been here two weeks so far, we have been able to produce quite a bit of work. Im looking forward to our next tour later this month. See the fun below.

28 Nov 2011

Stowe

This Thanksgiving my family kindly came up to visit me in Vermont. We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner at the Ye Olde English Inn and spent some time discovering the neighboring town of Stowe. Stowe is home to the wonderful Ben and Jerry's as well as home to the Von Trapp family estate. Yes, that's right folks, it's the Sound of Music, and the hills are truly alive. The estate has been since converted to quite a large Hotel Chalet as well as private condos, houses and villas. We stayed in the Stowehof Inn which had a very German/Swiss mountain house charm about it. Below you'll find an image of the road that leads to the Inn and the face of the Inn itself.

Things have been progressing well in the studio. I'm still feeling quite good about the photos now that they have been covered in wax and that I've incorporated some collage elements with them. I feel that I am steadily growing a nice body of work here. See below (these images incorporate both wax and collage).