{@name}
{@size} • {@medium}
All images ©LaFontsee Galleries. May not be reproduced without written permission.
Christine Hostetler • Statement
I love the tenuousness of watercolors, laid against the unsteady lines of felt pens. Watercolor has a sense of temporality. It can easily be washed away. It is this sense of time, of dripping and solid, heavy and light, which allows watercolor to reflect the delicacy and elusiveness of human relations.
I work from digital photographs, which are mere attempts at recording our lives. There is a sense of displacement to them. We try from the little information of the glimpses we have, whether they be of a passerby on the street or through the course of a relationship to understand the people we encounter. But our images and understanding are fleeting and incomplete, like the view of a person in a shaky watercolor, or the image of a person in a digital photo. The backgrounds in the paintings are incomplete or incoherent, leaving white space surrounding the subject. The emptiness reflects the lack of true understanding that can be gleaned about a person.
We are fragile, ever-changing beings, yet the fleeting glimpses we have of each other, whether on the street or through the course of a relationship, remain in our minds as snapshots of life that we try to understand. The identities of the people I paint do not matter. Their essence is revealed in a semi-empty, shaky painting. I focus on the subject’s simple beauty, the gestures and clothing and postures that allude only to who they might be.
Christine Hostetler • Biography
Education
2010
Bachelor of Arts in Studio Arts, with emphasis on drawing, French, and English; Hope College, Holland, MI
Related Work Experience
2009
Internship as Artist’s Assistant, Greg Lindquist, LLC, Brooklyn, NY
Assistant to the Publisher, The Brooklyn Rail, Brooklyn, NY
Awards
2009 & 2010
Jon F. Kay Award, Hope College, Holland, MI
2009
Stanley Harrington Art Award, Hope College, Holland, MI
2006–2010
Distinguished Artist Award
Collections
Permanent art collection, Hope College, Holland, MI
