Kristi Standley is an Art of Austin artist! Get to know more about her and her work.
Kristi Standley is an oil painter that paints on birch wood. She mostly paints women with miscellaneous added imagery to convey a general social issue.
AoA – When did you realize that you were an artist?
Kristi – I’m not sure of a specific time or place or of any one person saying it but it just sort of became a part of my consciousness. I have memories of being introduced as “the artist of the family”, and at Christmas time my space around the tree at my grandmother’s house was always full of art supplies; markers, various kinds of paper, watercolors, and always a new box of 64 count Crayola crayons in all their colorful waxy glory. I would sit in my closet for hours studying my books and cricket magazines, drawing and redrawing the characters on the pages. Painting didn’t come until much later and oils not until my 40’s, but it’s always been a process of studying different images and figuring out on my own how the artist accomplished the piece. Of course, now I create my own work and paint every day, so I have become the artist everyone in my childhood knew I always was.
AoA – Where do you derive inspiration (motivation?) from?
Kristi – People and their colors. It’s a simple answer but there you have it. I’ll be in a cafe or at the park and I start watching people sitting nearby or standing near a window, a stream of light across a face or shadows dancing on someone’s plaid shirt. I notice the play of colors and how they compare and contrast on someone’s bare skin or that plaid pattern. Life, this world, us, are full of various shapes and shades. It fascinate me, and as i observe the goings on around me i wonder, how do you create that shadow there under her jaw bone? What color is it really? Black? Blue? Purple? That shape under the eye? How can I recreate that? That journey of painting something with colors, making lines and shapes become an image that was at once a 3d object and now is on a flat substrate but still looks dimensional is truly beautiful.
AoA – Can you tell us about your work?
Kristi – I’m a figurative/portrait painter. I mostly paint women with various objects in their hands or in the frame to convey certain social issues that as women we are faced with every day. Recently I have started painting a series of self-portraits that reflect moments infused with emotion. Grief, joy, solitude to name a few. Color, as I mentioned before, plays a huge role in my work. An entire piece’s feel can turn on a shade or two, at least that’s how I see it.
AoA – Can you talk a little about your creative processes in creating a piece?
Kristi – That’s boring can we move on?! Lol.(Sigh) I guess I have to but only a little bit. I take photos with my little camera, print them the same size I want to paint them. Then transfer the image from the photo to the birch wood board. Once the protective coat is dry on the wood and the drawing is complete I start blocking in my color. See? Not very interesting….
AoA – Where can we find your work? Do you have any shows planned for the future?
Kristi – I am on Instagram as @artfullbeing, Facebook as Kristi Standley or artfullbeing and my extremely outdated website is kstandley.squarespace.com. I usually post where I’ll be. If you see me out and about at a show or at the grocery store come say hello, I adore people and meeting new ones is always a pleasure.
I want to thank Art of Austin for this awesome opportunity and a big thank you to Curtis for being so incredibly patient with me and my feeble attempts to understand technology.
AoA – No thank you Kristi for sharing your work and speaking with us today.
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