Biography:
Christine D'Epiro Abbott studied printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art in Glasgow, Scotland while completing her BFA at the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio. She received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. Following her MFA, Christine was an artist-in-residence for a year at the Luminary in St. Louis, Missouri. She has also participated an artist residencies at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont and Zygote Press in Cleveland, Ohio. She has exhibited nationally for over ten years. Her work is included in the permanent art collections at Nationwide Insurance at Plaza One, Hilton Columbus Downtown, Greater Columbus Convention Center, and Bexley Public Library. In 2021, D’Epiro Abbott received the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. Professionally, she has taught elementary age to college students with a wide variety of backgrounds and has over ten years of experience in a commercial art gallery setting. She is currently an Core Member at Phoenix Rising Printmaking Cooperative.
Artist Statement:
About a decade ago, I spent a year caring for another couple’s residence, cleaning and tidying up their possessions, which led me to create images of their domestic interior based on memory. Now that I am home caring for my two young sons, I’ve returned to producing related content from direct observation. The process of making the work corresponds to my relationship with the depicted rooms and frames my experience as a parent. By offering an abstracted perspective of my family’s home, viewers may enter the busy domain.
Printed as a multiple, architecture and furniture act as a backdrop for vivid activity and provide the viewer a method to imagine entering the scene. Skewed perspectives and frenzied marks interrupt the representation. In some areas the depiction dissolves altogether into a formal pursuit of shape, color and texture.
Likewise, our shared space is a site of constant busyness as evidenced by toys on the floor or baskets of laundry. Within the living area exist overlapping creative activities, diverging personal agendas and an ongoing concurrent progression of both order and disorder. As the work progresses, I am discovering parallel connections between this commotion occurring in our private world and the tumult of our current culture. Considering I first started this body of work with the relationship to such an intimate space as a caretaker, I’m interested in sharing a nuanced perspective of my own home through the lens of the overlapping roles of artist and mother.