Cristy West and her mixed-media painting Regenesis (pictured below) won the Marshall Award for best in show in this month’s all-media exhibit, in The Art League Gallery through April 30. Juror Joseph Di Bella said of the painting, “The color modulation is beautiful. The shapes, color, marks, and use of space really work. There is a fine sense of proportional relationships and groupings, which organize the piece. It’s dynamic, yet controlled.” Cristy told us more about her artwork and the story behind Regenesis.
What is your artistic process like?
Cristy West: I often start with messy scribbles, then work in a couple layers of color, and at some point slap on a piece of collage or a fragment of an old painting I have cut up. There is usually music going in the background and this helps me stay focused and motivated. I paint and step back, paint and step back. If a piece begins to go dead, I set it aside and work on another. It usually takes me an hour or two to get in the “the zone” and I have to stop when I begin to run out of steam and start becoming too fussy. There is much more control than may be obvious from the end product. I draw intuitively on color theory and design principles, using my knowledge of different media to achieve different effects. And my work is informed by diverse artists like Richard Diebenkorn and Joan Mitchell whose work, along with many others, I return to again and again for inspiration.
What media did you use in Regenesis?
Media include acrylic paints and gels, collage, marks of graphite pencil and caran d’ache crayon, artist’s tape. I work on Arches watercolor paper which I coat on both sides with two coats of gesso.
Is there a story behind Regenesis? What was your inspiration or motive for the piece?
Regenesis grew out of an earlier painting, Night in Rio, which appeared in the “Carnival” show in 2011. The strength of the earlier painting, I thought, was its raw energy, but in retrospect, it had begun to seem too chaotic and rather garish, lacking in particular a modulated range of values. So I took it out of its mat and frame and set aside. Some weeks later I attacked it anew, veiling over parts with gesso, toning down the color and simplifying the design, trying to be careful to let some of the old painting show through. Here are before and after versions:
Thus, on one level, the title refers to the way the new painting was a “regenerated” out of the old, a kind of phoenix rising from the fiery flames. However, there was, in addition, another more personal layer of meaning to the title.
Keep reading for more about how Cristy rediscovered her artistic voice!