Emerging Artists | Cristall Harper

All in the family

Cristall Harper, All Tuckered Out, oil, 6 x 6.

Cristall Harper, All Tuckered Out, oil, 6 x 6.

This story was featured in the April 2016 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art April 2016 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

When it comes to subject matter, Cristall Harper chooses things that feel like family: In her florals, she carries on her parents’ passion for flowers. In her canine portraits, she often captures her Labrador retriever, a part of her family who epitomizes joy, loyalty, and friendship. And in her seascapes, she pays homage to her ancestors—her great-grandfather’s family sailed from Montenegro to Ellis Island in 1906 on the SS Carpathia, the same ship that saved stranded Titanic passengers six years later. “The seashore feels like home more than any other place in the world,” she says. “The moods of the ocean reflect my own feelings of peace, hope, struggle, and pain. I feel a spiritual connection with the ocean, and I brush this into every seascape I paint.”

Harper studied at Brigham Young University and earned a fine-arts degree in 2002. Her creative process has evolved over the years, and today she says a chief component includes painting alla prima, or “wet on wet paint.” She adds, “I get to decide what I paint, but I don’t seek to control the whole process. In fact, my favorite paintings are those that take on a life of their own—when I am free to let magic happen.”

Cristall Harper, Put Your Faces toward the Sun, oil, 10 x 15.

Cristall Harper, Put Your Faces toward the Sun, oil, 10 x 15.

No matter the subject, the joy of painting for Harper is all about seeing shapes and colors on an abstract level and then interpreting them in her brush strokes. About her style, Harper says that one of the best descriptions came from a former teacher, who said that she had “a personal vision of abstraction rooted in reality.”

As this story was going to press, Harper had recently finished PUT YOUR FACES TO THE SUN for a group show in March at Authentique Gallery of Art and Design in St. George, UT. “I painted tulips that glimmered and held the sunlight at a time when I felt sadness and inadequacy,” Harper says. “The title is as much a reminder to me as anyone else to look for the silver lining when it’s easier to hang your head.” —Bonnie Gangelhoff

representation
Astoria Fine Art, Jackson, WY; Authentique Gallery of Art and Design, St. George, UT; FourSquare ART; Gallery Mar, Park City, UT.

Featured in the April 2016 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art April 2016 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

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