Student Artist To Exhibit Work At First Fridays Artwalk

19-year-old Kristin Joseph has always had a love for art. The Short Pump resident, who paints mainly large scale abstract works, took her first art class at age 9.

“In elementary school, art was my favorite class,” Joseph said. “I remember in first grade we were doing a Valentine project and we all got [boxes shaped like] hearts. The [boy] next to me wanted me to color in the heart, so I did.”

After her classmates saw how well she decorated the box, a line soon formed by her desk. “The teacher yelled at me because everyone wanted me to color their hearts in.”

The young artist took her passion for painting to the next level when she entered high school. Deep Run High School art instructor Michael Guyer inspired Joseph to do large scale paintings and experiment with abstract art.

From then on out, she’s done mainly large scale abstract works, using acrylic paints on canvas or artboard. She even adds dimension and texture to many of her paintings using various methods.

“I’ll put whatever texture I want on the board, and then I paint over it and kind of pull the details out,” Joseph said about her work. “I’ll  have an image in my head of what I want, but it never comes out exactly like that. I keep putting layers on it and it all just kind of conforms together.”

Joseph’s paintings don’t have any one central theme, but she often times centers her paintings on figure drawings. They’re abstract, yet figurative, and open to interpretation. “The thing about my [paintings] is that I want people to see their own images when they look at them and also what I’ve tried to make out of them. Most people say all my stuff looks like I’m capturing motion and it keeps moving while your eye is looking at it.”

This past summer, Joseph worked with Tammy Hinkle, owner of U Neek Walls. The talented local artist paints in the style of trompe l’oeil, which literally means “fool the eye” in French. It’s a method of realistic painting that creates the illusion of depth. Hinkle and Joseph collaborated on a large wall mural at a new home in the Henley subdivision off of Pouncey Tract Road.

Joseph will show and sell some of her paintings on Friday, October 3, 2008 at the First Fridays Artwalk downtown. Her exhibit, entitled “Impermanence of Motion,” will be displayed at Lift Coffee Shop at 218 West Broad Street from 6:00-10:00 PM the night of the event, and throughout the entire month of October.

The second year college student is in the process of earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, with an emphasis in studio art. For more information on Joseph’s work, visit her website.