Chris Bishop

Bio
Chris is primarily a self-taught intuitive artist who came to Tucson over twenty years ago from New Jersey to start a new life.

While she was raising a family, she taught art in a private academy and began her studies of various art forms. Chris went on to develop a successful business, A Slice of Country, selling her own country folk art creations and miniatures at numerous venues in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and along the Mid-Atlantic states.

When Chris moved here, she focused more on jewelry, mosaics, collage, painting, assemblages and mixed media. Founder of Maiden Arizona Artists. A local art collective of female artists showing their art work throughout Tucson, AZ and the southwest. Initiator of Art Gone Postal - a year long project of postcard art by three artists making a collection of 156 original postcards ready to frame or mail.

Current member of both Contemporary Artists of Southern Arizona and Paperworks. Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery Tohono Chul Gallery Habitat for Humanity The Drawing Studio Woman Kraft Central Arts Gallery Acacia Gallery Industrial Studio.

Many of her pieces are in private collections in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California and right here in Tucson Chris is currently giving assorted art classes in Painting and Paper Mache at her Tucson home.

Artist Statement
Her philosophy of art: "I make art because I have no choice. It's something I just need to do and if I'm not creating something, I feel as if I'm losing my balance. My art is the one thing that has been with me throughout my life. This is just who I am."

Primarily self-taught, Chris sees her work as intuitive and serendipitous. She admits that deliberate intention is indeed necessary but so also are spontaneous play and irrational experiments.

Many of the images, concepts and symbols in her work come from her subconscious. Even though she is an intuitive artist, inspiration is found in nature and in this town of soaring mountains in endless skies, that are watching over this strange and beautiful landscape. She has an endless appetite for nature with it's design, line and texture.

Through the years, her interests have taken her through miniatures, oils, pen & ink, mosaics, acrylics, collage and assemblages from found objects.

Because of working in all these art forms, she currently makes use of all these processes in her mixed media pieces. These pieces exhibit texture, movement, design and color. They are a mixture of plaster, paper, fiber and found materials layered together in imaginative pieces.

Objects are layered on and removed to create pieces that are incredibly time consuming which are full of texture, thickness and constructed in multiple layers that reshape each piece and challenge the material into different results. Because of this, many of her pieces result in complexities and fragilities at the same time. She has fallen in love with the creative process, more than the result.