Art Chowder January | February 2022 Issue 37 | Page 16

throughout the city of Spokane ; her works have been featured throughout the Inland Northwest as well as in national and international publications .
She spent the summer “ vanning it up ” to connect with nature and gain some new inspiration for her current series . Playing in nature helps her to explore the bold bright colors and dynamic life of the scenes and subjects she paints . Much of her work ties together the beauty of nature , and the complexity of the human experience . She also aims to capture the freedom and joy she finds in her outdoor adventures .
In 2021 , Christina ’ s work took on a slightly new character . This has resulted in her recent wildlife series of acrylic paintings that are entirely finger painted . This finger painting technique is the latest in her experiments with all kinds of tools and techniques and the inspiration behind it comes from a painting she did with her son about ten years ago . They had done some finger painting on the canvas together , as a way to include her then young child , and it remains one of her favorite pieces to this day . She ’ s been finding a lot of joy and creative freedom in this new technique , saying “ It just feels so much more liberating ; there ’ s nothing between me and the paint .” For an artist who puts so much personal emotion and story into each of her paintings , it ’ s easy to see the importance in the depth of that connection between artist and canvas that Christina cultivates .
She ’ s happiest when she is able to dive into creative rabbit holes . Christina very much goes with the flow of her inspiration and her body of work reflects that . She loves to move from topic to topic and hyper focuses , digging deeply into each new subject to test out her skills and explore all it has to offer . She spoke a bit about our cultural tendency to pick a field , and work in one area for our whole career . While we need experts in many things , she sees that mentality as being very confining . “ Having the freedom to learn and move on and keep learning is so important .”
For her next series , Christina is going back to her landscape work . She wants to approach the subject and the stories and emotions they reflect in a new light . Her work is so evocative that it is
16 ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE