About the Artist

Artist Statement:

I am constantly exploring new media and different approaches to making art. Whatever medium I'm using, I begin from a place of alert focus and inner stillness. From there my paintings begin to emerge. I scribble and splatter, glue down collage, paint over, add new layers. As I move in and out of the quiet, I try to listen to what each painting wants to say. It may be only a whisper. Mark-making is a central part of my process and I also play with color transitions and complex textural effects. Each painting becomes a visual record of my journey of exploration at a particular point in time. I am pleased if the final result evokes in the viewer a sense of tensions held in balance, a realization that there is more lurking under the surface than meets the eye.


Bio:

Cristy West is an abstract mixed media artist who, for the past twenty years, has been showing work in and around Washington, DC. Her art training has taken place mainly at the Art League School, in Alexandria, Va., and at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC. Earlier in her life she was a writer and a teacher of writing and also practiced art therapy. She holds a PhD in Arts in Education, with an emphasis on applied storytelling, and was involved in the creation of the Healing Story Alliance of the National Storytelling Network. She is a fervent believer in the power of the arts, in all their forms, to reveal and celebrate what it means to be human. She is a member of Gallery 57 at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia and was for many years (2018-2023) an active member of Foundry Gallery in Washington DC. She also shows work at the New Era Gallery in Vinalhaven Maine where she spends her summers.

A good introduction to Cristy's work is a short youtube video www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgP1HE_melH8s…
made in conjunction with the show "The Language of Marks" which took place at Foundry Gallery in Dec 2020.

See also the 2019 interview "A Playful State of Mind" in which she discusses her process in creating a prize-winning painting at The Art League. www.theartleague.org/blog/2019/10/22/pl…

Cristy's Instagram page can be found at www.instagram.com/cristyweststudio/