Krista graduated in 1994 from The Pennsylvania State University with a BA focusing on painting and biology. She then studies for two years at an atelier, The Schuler School of Fine Arts, in Baltimore, MD. In 1998, she earned her MA from the Johns Hopkins University in Medical and Biological Illustration. After establishing herself as a medical illustrator, she returned to painting and studied with painters at The Art League School in Alexandria, VA and completed a yearlong apprenticeship with portrait and landscape painter, Edward Reed. In 2007 she moved to Charlottesville, VA and began showing her work in Virginia and Washington, DC. Her work has entered many private and public collections including the University of Virginia Medical Center, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health System, Martha Jefferson Hospital, The Country Club of Virginia, and more.
Krista’s work is represented across Virginia by Glavé Kocen Gallery in Richmond and Les Yeux du Monde in Charlottesville, LinDor Arts in Roanoke, and Cottage Curator in Sperryville. She is also represented by Bee Street Gallery in Dallas, TX.
Statement
Painting is about the joy of puzzling out how to express what I see and feel and translate that into something uniquely its own. I am inspired and humbled by the natural world, but I can only see it through human eyes. Thus, I often contemplate my place in this world and our human connection to and dependence on nature and each other. This leads me to paint everything from the beauty of a wildflower meadow to a friend in her garden or a quiet family moment in the home. I make it my practice to spend meaningful time and immerse myself in the places and with the people that I paint, getting to know them. Then, while painting, I try to focus on what’s happening in the moment on the surface of the canvas, and let the work lead me to find things I subconsciously absorbed about my subjects. There’s something magical in that process of discovery. My hope is that my work inspires a personal response in my viewer to act on our collective stewardship of nature as a means of caring for each other.