Bio

I am a Brooklyn-based artist. My art practice developed slowly after a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Concussion Syndrome in 2014. As my brain healed, I inexplicably started to pick up rusted metal on my walks because I thought they were “pretty”. Part of my “picking-up” feels like a rescue and an offering of “care” in contrast to the blatant disregard of the item landing in the location I find it. Often items are run-over, mangled and in that destruction, I am drawn to color, line, shape and wear.

I understand that dormant characteristics/traits can get reconnected during the brain healing/re-wiring process. This is the only explanation for what has become my practice today. The “creative” parts of my brain that existed in my youth are now in their full-form and re-developed. It has been equal parts bizarre and natural.

What’s clear now is: I respond to my immediate environment. I gather all my items on my bike rides and walks. I call my bike “the hauler”.  In the panniers are:  wire cutters, a hand saw and bungee cords.  Arranging my treasures on the bike is a puzzle unto itself.  I have carried concrete blocks with random paint, wood that sits 3 feet off the end of my bike, two wood framed windows with chipped turquoise paint, and anything else you can imagine.  Often the items are indiscernible, but striking in their individual composition.  I typically “sit” with the items in my living space, sometimes for months before I take them to the garage where I work.  My process ebbs and flows with the seasons, not unlike my childhood on a farm.  I gather year round, but create mostly in Spring & Summer, with perhaps a small burst in Fall.

My work started outside in public spaces in 2018. For well over a year and a half, I tended to, and maintained a photo-documentation of a land art piece on the beach of Fort Tilden. My work evolved in 2019 when I wanted to use the rusted metals I had gathered since the beginning of my brain injury.  When I pursued welding instruction my work shifted to 3D.

My ideas are rooted in challenging the archetype of commercial beauty harnessing the conflict of philosophical anthropology, specifically the human nature relating to our impact on climate change.  My practices, concepts and work honor the earth, compelled to believe that each piece is a form of remembrance, a memorial of sorts, asking the viewer to meditate on their (dis)regard for the environment as a call to action.  Most certainly, all of my work is a reconciliation of my career in the fashion and apparel industry. It was an outlet for storytelling through color, print, pattern, texture and graphic design. I have a dual MBA from Columbia University and University of California, Berkeley.

 Contact:  krysti@ohk.agency