We recently connected with Christine Evans and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Christine thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

Emotional Terrain was a pivotal moment in my artistry. For years I struggled with realism’s perfectionism in the figure as a result of my upbringing at Mission Renaissance Fine Arts School. The disillusioned system exclusively relied on representation of reality through pictures, stylistic references, and still lifes. Although this system fits their business model, the talent myth, I found its restrictions stunted my artistic growth. It guided me to solely rely on visual representation, thus atrophying my creative muscle. Play and exploration within art felt unsafe due to its unfamiliarity, only pushing me further into perfectionism. Art no longer felt like an expression, but an expectation.

My first year at Cal Poly Slo’s BFA program was challenging not only for me, but for my art professors. Attempting to master perfection gave quite the god-complex. I assure you I was not selfish or unkind in my egocentrism; however, I did believe I was one of very few in my program doing art the right way. To be fair, how could I have known any better? My nature says OCD and my nurture said either do it the right way, or don’t do it at all. I was fortunate that one of my art professors empathized with my nurturance since she also attended Mission Renaissance. Her name is Laura Krifka, and she, alongside Sara Frantz, saw perfectionism driving me insane and took on the challenge of saving me from feeling burnt out from art forever.

With trial and error, pushback, tears, doubt, confusion, and hopelessness came a rebirth in exploring art as MY therapy. That’s right, MY art, MY way, for MY mental health. Granted, with every “aha!” moment comes occasional setbacks. I still continue to struggle with maladaptive perceptions and behaviors within my artistic practice, feeling nostalgic for creating obvious beauty and Anthropology picturesque paintings. That was my vision for the better half of 20 years of my life. However, nothing will compare to the satisfaction of creating something that only existed in your mind, nowhere else. That mindset began in my junior year studio class. My art professors challenged me to make something completely devoid of reality, utilizing pure subconscious abstraction. I faced the canvas patiently waiting for personal ethos to abstract, and along came Emotional Terrain, my first painting in abstract expression that would change my artistic practice for the better.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I believe that artistry takes a profoundly responsible role in building perception; it is visual empathy. Artists create space for exploration, discussion, and understanding of what they believe needs more attention. I’ve found my devout responsibility in unpacking groupthink’s role in society, our brains’ ability to go so far as to find comfort in labeling anything “othered” as abnormal.

The latest theme explored within my practice is the mind’s search for solitude. I am studying psychology not only for its interest but also for its clarity in my life-long relationship with mental health. I am participating in my own therapy to become a better therapist, advocate, and artist. I am reacquainting myself with art for its therapeutic and explorative expression, finding healing in my mind’s deepest and darkest parts. The canvas is where my brain and body engage in catharsis to reprocess past experiences.

Through deep, dark texture and figurative fragmentation, my goal is to dismantle 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 my works invite 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.”

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

In today’s America, adults are faced with the harsh reality that decades old standards don’t work anymore. Buying a home in this economic climate? Moving out of state in this political climate? Settling down and starting a nuclear family in this global climate? If I thought the pressure was on before for maintaining financial sustainability, post-COVID and adulting really shoves your priorities into perspective. The 2017 job market has nothing on 2024 inflation and expenses for living. (I am continuously smacked with the reality that I am in fact an adult doing the adulting thing when I speak on employment and America’s democracy). Let’s face it, I’m no longer the high schooler dreaming about working in my corporate job with cushy living.

Corporate America does an immaculate job in hypnotizing young adults into thinking they need to work a traditional nine-to-five to make money and be happy. When I was a young girl, I wanted to be an artist. When I was a teenager, society and my insecurity said I couldn’t make a living off of being an artist, so I wanted to be a forensic psychologist. When I was 18, my independence said I could make money from art, but only if I were a biomedical illustrator. When I was 21, I realized my mental health took precedence over money, so I pursued art therapy. At 25, I am an artist and an advocate for change.

Originally, I thought art would inform my pursuit in psychology in the form of art therapy; instead, psychology informs my artistry. It took putting art on the back burner for me to realize I was pursuing art all along. I learned that following your intuition and going against the grain is the greatest form of self-care out there.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

The greatest take-away I got from my education was not facts on art history, not welding and wood-working, not creating in different styles. It is to be kind to everyone, because you never know where you’ll find inspiration or who you’ll inspire.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cmevans-art-design.com/
• Instagram: christine_art_design
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-evans-2021

Image Credits

Kyle Harmina