Artist Statement
Christy Frisken is a visual artist who lives and works where the Fraser River meets the Salish Sea in Vancouver BC. She is anchored by curiosity and reverence for the energy of physical spaces, and how the human body moves through them. Christy creates large-scale Acrylic paintings and oil paintings. Her work is abstract and mood based. Her paintings are like a map that brings forward her subconcious.
Christy has a BFA in Visual Arts from Emily Carr University after retiring from a 15+ year career as a bicycle messenger. Her work has been presented in many galleries including the Richmond Art Gallery, Beaumont Studios, Plaskett Gallery, Surrey Art Gallery and Access Gallery.
My art practice has been influenced by the field of psychogeography since 2012, the same year I graduated with a BFA in Visual Arts from ECUAD, and retired from my 15+ year career as a bicycle messenger. My interest in psychogeography is motivated by my spiritual belief in intergenerational transference and communication through spirit of place. I engage in the act of drifting as a critical tool for understanding the effects of physical environment on my creativity. This is inherited behaviour; my father walked overland from Mumbai, India to Calais, France without a map in the early 1960s, and throughout my childhood encouraged me to walk without destination.
I prefer chalk pastel on paper, and oil paint on wood panelling for creating 2D work. A student of astrology for two decades, the orb and its energetic impact is my works’ most persistent theme. The circle is an act of forgiveness. My practice necessitates daily walks across the city, gathering discarded found materials to be used in future artwork.
Christy Frisken
2022