Irene
Christensen
Media:
Painting, Drawing
Studio Location:
Long Island City Art Center - 44-02 23rd Street, Long Island City 11101
Room/Studio#
421
Website:
Artist Bio:
Irene Christensen manages to divide her time producing her work in her studios in New York City as well as in Oslo, Norway, and for several years in Costa Rica. Her art has been shown in many museums such as Newark Museum, NJ, Galeria Nacional, Costa Rica, Norsk Skogbruks Museum, Norway, Norwegische Tage, Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany, EFTA, Brussels, Belgium, Bergen Museum, NJ, USA, Paterson Museum, NJ, USA, Noyes Museum, NJ, USA, USA as well as many art centers and galleries including in Brazil, Israel and Argentina. In 2017 she participated in the Personal Structures exhibition organized by the Global Art Affairs Foundation and hosted by the European Cultural Center in the context of the Venice Art Biennale of 2017. There she showed an installation of 9 accordion books.
Irene Christensen is a certified Jersey City Artist and member of Norwegian Association of Professional Visual Artists, NY Sculptors Guild, The National Arts Club, Long Island City Artists, New York Artists Circle, Honorary Board Member to Everglades Artists in Residence (AIRIE), Florida, former Board Member to Artists Talk on Art (ATOA), New York City, the Art Students League, where she studied with Richard Pousette-Dart and Joseph Hirsch. Her work is represented in many museums and personal collections in Europe and USA.
Artist Statement:
Paintings: I narrate on the environment and my perspective on female forms in nature in my paintings. My symbols and imagery of my paintings and installations serve as my translation of the primacy of nature and humanity’s dependence and inescapable bond to it. I describe my work as a mythology and personal iconography in which the viewer is invited into a discourse with strange and fantastic representations of the female portrait, depicted in constant celebration of life and beauty.
Accordion Books: My accordion books contain symbolism and my attitudes to the environment and surroundings. Memories of events, past and present, in the three countries, Norway, United States and Costa Rica, have shaped my identity. How I see the world. The books are imported from Asia and my process consists of exploration and intuition. I am working with each double page first, and then fold the sides back before I start on the next. Each side can be considered a single work or as part of the evolution of the work. I have made more that 60 concertina books.
