Kristen Napier

Artist's Statement

Documenting my own experiences has always been a major part of my work, probably since the beginning. I can remember standing on a chair at the kitchen table scrawling pictures of trains, cats, turtles, whatever had crossed my path that day. As I’ve gotten older it’s become more about recording the emotion rather than the image, the way a place or an event made me feel and how that feeling could be represented on paper. I incorporate a lot of mixed media in my work, partially for experimental purposes and partially for the contrast its adds to a piece. My work has become rather large in the last year to accommodate the sweeping brushstrokes I started using. My concepts about work change daily, whether influenced by a reading, another artist, music, I don’t have a formula or a set a rules, I make what is necessary to record my thoughts for that moment of time.