Artist Spotlight: Christine Harris

If you've seen Christine Harris's work, you're unlikely to forget it. Her sculptures are both touching and haunting in equal measure.

Christine is both a professional sculptor and an art therapist from Chesapeake, VA. For Christine, the two professions intertwine as she brings key concepts from her art therapy training forward that emphasizes process over product as well as self-expression.

When asked how Christine became involved with art, she confesses that there hasn't been a time that she wasn't creating something. One of her first memories was of taking apart a doll and then reassembling it in new and strange ways, a creative and inventive process at a very young age. Art has been something that has always been a part of who she is.

Christine primarily draws her inspirations from dreams. She also draws inspiration from psychology, mythology, parapsychology, and horror and science fiction books and movies. Her work stands apart from others because of the unique way she blends her symbolism with the inclusion of hybrids, and a signature distortion of the human form. The primary purpose of her work us to connect her subconscious ideas with hope and bring that to the public collective subconscious.

While Christine's goal is to eventually work solely as an artist, she already finds deep value in connecting with others through her work. When someone connects with a piece, when they feel it says something to them and in turn gives them something to think about, Christine feels a deep sense of satisfaction and purpose.

In Christine's own words;

"Being awake and having insight is also seeing the world around us as interconnected and that we are part of nature, not separate from it. Being awake is an ongoing process, like an unfolding story. All of my work unfolds like a story because I start with a group of observations, feelings, and ideas from my interests in comparative mythology, psychology and nature, and I don’t know the end until I am finished. When I have completed a sculpture, I feel like I have integrated all of the conscious and unconscious things in my head into one, and that I have gained a deeper understanding and more insight into life.

My appreciation and concern for nature comes through in all my work, especially my concern over what we do to nature, because I believe that what we do to nature, we also do to ourselves. I try to show this interconnectedness by fusing insects, animals and humans together to literally show that our fates are tied together."