Kristen Healy

The source material for current work is found by searching online networking sites, such as Facebook and myspace. There is something special about the intention of the amateur photographers – taking and posting banal pictures for practically anyone to view. It’s an act of marking time, or wanting to remember, and this work specifically explores the need to connect or transcend.

The chosen images were photos of trees in urban settings. The translation onto canvas invests these mundane images with some of the elusive attraction that inspired the original photograph- the ability of urbanized nature to prompt an internal narrative, creating a psychological space. The flawed image, often badly composed, smudged and blurred, provides a rich starting point for response on canvas.

Using the images of others as a starting point creates emotive distance between the artist and the image, allowing the painting to change and distort with fewer restrictions.

Kristen Healy is a fine art graduate living and working in Brighton, U.K. Her practise involves the use of photography, digital manipulation, painting, collage and drawing. Since graduating in 2003 she partook in the Hans Brinker Residency Program, Amsterdam, and continues to exhibit widely.