A r t i s t ’s   B i o

Kristen-lee Baillie’s evolution into an abstract painter/poet followed a successful career as a figurative ceramic artist in Sydney, Australia where Kristen lived until moving to Boulder, Colorado in 2004. 

Growing up in the suburbs of Sydney, Kristen’s first creative impulses were with textiles. She designed funky clothes which she sewed (and painted) for herself and friends.  Eventually, Kristen obtained a degree in Fine Arts at the University of Western Sydney. It was here that she learned to integrate textiles, painting, text and her new love of ceramics into a cohesive artistic expression. Her innovative ceramics gained the attention of the University’s professors which led to her being offered an exclusive position as artist-in-residence upon her graduation.

During this residency Kristen’s functional ceramics became commercially popular, so she launched a company called Omelette Design which designed and manufactured ceramics for a global market.  She also had numerous sculptural ceramic exhibitions in galleries around Sydney. Her ceramics are represented in private and public collections in Australia, Japan, Great Britain, the US and elsewhere.  She also represented Australia in a government-sponsored exhibition in Singapore of the best of Australian contemporary craft.

In 2003, Kristen was married in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  She and her husband (Ross) took a year off to explore Asia, southern Africa, and parts of Europe, South America, and the USA, before relocating to Boulder, Colorado. . During this journey, Kristen conscientiously drew every day, whether in hotel rooms, airplanes, parks or anywhere she had some free time.  She made collages using locally-acquired papers, textiles, buttons and any other interesting materials she could fit in her backpack.

When arriving in America in mid-2004, she decided to transfer these ideas on to canvas, creating dynamic compositions of intense color, texture and pattern. Her strongest influences which can be seen in her work include Australian and other rugged landscapes, African jewelry, Asian textiles, and cartography. Of course, her long relationship with ceramics has led her to experiment with creating dense textures on canvas and  pushing the limits of the perceived two-dimensional medium.

“I didn’t plan to work on canvas. It just seemed like a natural progression in my visual evolution. After working primarily with ceramics for twelve years, I wanted to concentrate on surface rather than building the form itself. Painting allows me to distill my creative process to a finer, more focused expression of the inspiration I’ve found throughout the world.”

A r t i s t ’s   S t a t e m e n t

“For me the experience of creating is like cooking: I try to utilize every available ingredient, both exotic and local, combined with a vast array of materials and tools to create a unique visual feast, be it spicy or sumptuous, rich or nourishingly simple.

“I draw from what my eyes have already tasted, from the rugged landscapes of Australia, the textiles of central Asia, the intensity of India, the body adornment of Africa, to the brilliant coral reefs of the Pacific. I try to combine this with pieces I’ve collected: beads and buttons, textiles, paper and text from places of inspiration. And to play with the context of these items, to cut, scratch, mold and manipulate it all without conventional limitation.

“In an age of extremes, wealth and poverty, peace and discord, technology and ecology, my art strives for a universal landscape of harmony.

I am blending cultural decorative motifs, color, texture and pattern, without trying to re-invent the wheel.

I strive to make my work authentic, without ego....

“The goal is to create fabulous original concoctions that challenge, inspire, imprint, and will hopefully delight.”

Kristen-lee Baillie

2005