Christine Jonas Labich

Christine Jonas Labich is a celebrant of the natural world and the experience of being human. Trained as an ecologist and meditator, she is grounded in practices of close observation. As a naturalist, she enjoys learning the particulars of the landscape—what tree species lives where, how clouds form on a summer afternoon over the foothills, and how water flows as a channel widens. However, her career in science could not address feelings evoked in the landscape—feelings of mystery, inspiration, interdependence, and the sweet-sadness life’s fleeting nature. She left science at 30 to become a self-taught painter and mother, and to discover how she might create visible expressions of what is often invisible or unspoken. Her work has become an exploration of what makes realism transcendent. She has learned through trial and error, a few workshops, and a voracious appetite for observing other artists’ work. Her paintings are suggestions of the magic of ordinary things, and reminders that we are not just our jobs, the stories about ourselves, or our worries. We are part of something inexplicable, ungraspable, and luminous. Christine continues to study, practice, and teach painting, and as her children fledge she is striving for further integration of observation, mystery, and care for the natural world in her art.

* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 15^th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.