FROM THE ARTIST:
Long after witnessing the unraveling of desperate lovers all around me plagued by the impossible desire to be understood, after falling into the trance of ego, lust for childhood, want for emptiness and hate of love, I find myself trapped with the weight of finishing a task I'd begged to be given. Sitting on a bench thick with years of fresh red paint, silent beneath a wooden roof held high on granite pillars cut from the quarry one hundred years ago, kids squealing with joy and terror as they weave between mechanical airplanes, trains, photo booths and fortune tellers, shielded from the cracking light, deafening roar of a storm so heavy, it has filled the creek, flooded the streets and closed the roads in and out of this small, mountain town. The parallels are almost unbearable.
Artist Statement: I create mischievous delights... whimsical, carnal, sculptural pieces that grow from a meditation on beauty, compassion and jubilant life. In the fingerprints of Gaudi, Bali, Dali, I aim to awaken the foxy sincerity that revolts from symmetry and flourishes in genuine experience.
The impetus for my work is a love of conversation and process. What I find interesting are the connotations we attach to language, to life, and the compassion required to appreciate divergent perspectives. A field of grass is just a field of grass; yet, in a breezy afternoon, when the sun shines through bright white clouds, it is alive and a part of me and a part of you.
Bio: Crystal Hartman is a multi-media artist, a writer and a jeweler. Her work has been shown at locations such as The Lill Street Art Gallery, Chicago Illinois, The National Palace of Culture, Sofia Bulgaria and the Center for Contemporary Culture Barcelona Spain. She received her BFA for Printmaking from The University of Colorado at Boulder and studied Image in Enamel at Ox-Bow, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After studying Femininity in Argentine Society, she filmed for Null Skateboards in Spain, and studied public art and cultural craft in Chaing Mai, Thailand. Inspired by storytelling, culture, and the natural world, her work -large and small- opens conversations within and between disparate perspectives. Hartman uses her paintings as sketchbooks for sculptural jewelry showcased at select galleries and fine jewelry stores throughout the west. Her writing can be found at The Brooklyn Art Library, Brooklyn, New York: her visual poetry, in CutBank Literary Journal, Interrupture Literary Journal and through Plumbery Press.