ARTIST STATEMNT

Through deep, dark texture and figurative fragmentation, artist Christine Evans dismantles mental health politics by abstracting psychological experiences through the empowerment of vulnerability, finding comfort in the unknown, and exploring beauty in the grotesque. Repurposing materials on a large scale to capture mental health’s overwhelming oblivion in conjunction with precise details redefines mental health’s profuse stigmas of deviance, danger, and dysfunction into complex, nuanced, and captivating. The audience is drawn in, physically changing their perspective from something seen as shocking and unsettling from afar to becoming intimate with the canvas, refocusing the viewer toward the delicate precision and transformation of materials. As a result, emotive abstraction from layered and scraped impasto turns the canvas into a topographical landscape of peaks and valleys, symbolizing how people build themselves up when broken down amidst unwavering emotional turmoil. Working alongside emotive abstraction, the canvas holds space for psychological exploration by representing intangible experiences within mental health through the figure. There is immense beauty within the grotesque, what is unknown, the unfamiliar, and the abnormal, and Evans' work invites you to sit within that discomfort. Just as the therapist creates a safe space for the client to explore their psyche, the artist creates a safe space for the viewer to gaze upon and wander into the “other.” 

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Christine Evans was born in 1999 in Orange County, CA, where she currently resides. She continued her art education at the California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo, graduating class 2021, receiving her BFA in studio arts. She is now pursuing her MA in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology. Evans reports her undergraduate experience challenged her artistic and personal perception, and her graduate degree continues to inform her creative practice. Once she finishes her master’s, her goal is to return to art school to continue her research at the institutional level and develop art theory and practice driven by psychology. She collaborated closely with her alma mater, presenting at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art and Cal Poly’s Art and Design Department. She looks forward to growing as a member of the creative community.