Christine Wallers is a visual artist working in Chicago and Albuquerque.
statement
I am a non-representational artist using materials ranging from glass, wire, and metal to paper, ink, and light. I maintain an artistic practice that favors the imperfect, ritualistic, and contemplative processes of hand rendering. The result is work that exudes a palpable, life-like energy that moves viewers beyond conceptual understanding into visceral recognition and empathy. I challenge the viewer’s experience by asking for presence, concentration, and consideration of the subtleties within my work as a way to comment on a culture that holds high regard for spectacles, monuments, grandiose gestures, and immediate gratification.
commentary
"... her earlier work at Experimental Sound Studio and A + D Gallery displayed a signature mix of intelligence, finesse, and subtlety...During the day, Death of a Moth used the abundant light of a large south-facing window to illuminate pendulous sail-like forms burnished with ink. After dusk the storefront became an evanescent spectacle of projected images, angular volumes, and copper wire cats-cradle—all shimmering and accompanied by mysterious sounds audible through the door’s mail slot." — Lise McKean, 2016, Bad At Sports
"Wallers' two-dimensional drawings have a density that is entirely formal. Rich in mark making but essentially delicate and fugitive in a way that is only possible with graphite, we feel that a moment of form will disappear in an instant — erased and replaced with another accumulation of marks. In her paper-based series, marks swarm or flock together to produce a powerful collective body which moves as a single entity, but in which each mark has its own weight and importance." — Jennifer Shaw, 2014, "On Big Drawings" Catalog, A + D Gallery
"'Sea Level's' strength is its quiet, reserved mood, an echo of the region's resilient Scandinavian forefathers. Running parallel to the fir planks, it appears and disappears in changing light, mimicking the shifting hues of local skies and water or the mirage-like glow of wet sidewalks." — Judy Wagonfeld, 2005, Seattle Pi
"Contemporary art that has as its subject contemplation, and, essentially, prayer, is open to accusations of New Age cliche and risks having its intention far override execution. But like Wolfgang Laib, Wallers and Peters managed to create a space that invited viewers to appreciate perceptual increments, here the subtlety of metal on metal and barely heard sound. You had to lean in, to slow down. You were quietly conscious of your own heightened attention to the work as you experienced it." — Aline Brandauer, 2001, Art in America
"This is German conceptual/earth art at its best. But Wallers is more than just one of the Beuys. If Air and Excavation is a lesson in metaphysics, it is also a meditation. Its intimate reflections on the basic elements of existence invite the viewer's welcome intrusion." — Richard Tobin, 2000, THE Magazine
contact
christinewallers (at) gmail.com
studio