Photo credit: Kathy Daly
About the Artist
Kristina Davies (b. Denver, CO) is an artist and educator who works in Denver, Colorado. She holds a Master of Education in Integrating Teaching through the Arts from Lesley University, a K-12 Teaching Certificate from San Diego State, and a BA in Sociology (Summa Cum Laude) from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Working as a teacher for twenty-five years, Kristina brought all forms of the arts into her classroom. She believes that teaching through the arts deepens understanding and helps students make connections.
A key component of Kristina’s artistic mission is community-based art, knowing the transformative power of expression through artistic experiences. Bringing the arts to a community, particularly youth, is an essential aspect of her work as an artist. She is passionate about making the arts accessible to ALL and creating positive social change in areas such as LGBTQ rights and racial justice. She believes in the healing power of the arts and its ability to bring communities together.
Her studio is located in the Art District on Santa Fe in Denver at BitFactory Studios. Kristina’s works are in private and public collections in Colorado, Kentucky, California and New York. She has exhibited in Santa Fe and Denver.
Artist Statement
Kristina Davies is a process-based visual artist who believes that the act of painting is a form of self-discovery, of tapping into the mindful presence of openness and awe. The interaction with materials, music, movement, and mark making, all come together in a gestural, intuitive dance. She works without an attachment to a plan or goal, which allows her to experiment, take risks, and make the unconscious conscious.
At times, her work is non-objective, where her visual vocabulary is pure abstraction. Often, her paintings become figurative, and a narrative unfolds, or a concept comes through in a powerful, unexpected way. Each layer, each brush stroke, each deconstruction, each mark…they all work together to create something new; to represent a joy, an injustice, an idea, a passion.
Recently, she has been exploring the use of asemic writing in her work, where written language and symbols are referenced but only as a shadow, an abstraction of conventional writing. She is intrigued by the idea that there is a subconscious language that all human beings carry deep inside. This orphaned text is seen as a visual object that is accessible to all regardless of language; it has no meaning, and it has infinite meanings.