Christine Alfery – Biography

Academic Preparation

PH.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Curriculum & Instruction, A.B.D,.

Ph.D., Minor completed: Art History, contemporary issues and concepts.

·       M.F.A. Art, UW-Madison, Spring 1996.

·       M.A. Art Education, UW-Madison, 1994.

·       B.A. Art/Art Education, UW-Madison. 

Experience

·        Docent, 1994- 2008.  Elvehjem Museum of Art, UW-Madison.

·        Docent, 1994 - 2008.  Madison Art Center, Madison, WI.

·        1994-2002 - Educator - University of Wisconsin-Madison

Memberships

·        American Watercolor Society.

  National Watercolor Society.

 Wisconsin Visual Arts Society.

Wisconsin Watercolor Society.

 Lakeland Art League, Minocqua, Wisconsin

Manito – Art League. Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin.

Galleries, Exhibitions, Shows.

My work has been represented in group and solo exhibitions yearly for the past 40 years, including exhibitions in designer showrooms in High Point, North Carolina; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; Minocqua, Wisconsin; Pheonix, Arizonia; New York, New York; San Francisco, California; San Diego, California; Hollywood to list a few. 

To follow is a list of exhibitions, galleries and shows I have participated in for the last couple of  years.

2010________________________________________________________________________

Group Juried Show. May. Red River Valley International Juried Art Exhibition. Vernon, Texas.

Group Juried Show. January - February. Northwest Art Center. Hartnett Hall Gallery. Minot State University. Minot, ND. "Americas 2010: Paperworks."

Group Juried Show. April. Andrews Art Museum. Andrews, North Carolina.

Group Juried Show. March. Women's Works 2010. Woodstock, Illinois.

Group Show. March. Artist Haven Gallery. Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Group Juried Show. January. Center for The Visual Arts. Wausau, Wisconsin. "Midwest Seasons."

2009________________________________________________________________________

Group Juried Show. December - April 2010. Wisconsin Regional Arts Program. Show judge and presenter 2009.

Group Juried Exhibition - Watercolor Wisconsin 2009. Wutsum Museum of Fine Art. Racine Wisconsin

Group Juried Show and Exhibition - American Art Awards – First Place.

Manito – Art League. Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin. (Best of Show)

Manito – Art League. Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin. (Honorable Mention)

Group Exhibition – Jennifer Harwell Art Gallery, Birmingham, AL.

Group Juried Exhibition – Contemporay Art Network, New York, New York.

Group Exhibition – Howard Young Medical Center – Photography Show. Minocqua, Wisconsin

Group Exhibition – Parkside Gallery, Minocqua, Wisconsin.

·        Group Exhibition – Moondeer and Friends. Boulder Junction, Wisconsin.

·        Group Exhibition –  Artists Haven, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

·        Group Exhibition – Artists Haven, “Celebrating 100 Artists” Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

·        Group Exhibition – “Trinity’s Freedom” Artists Haven Gallery, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

·        Contemporary Art Biennial Exhibiton. . Artoteque (Publication – invited artist).

Motley Spaces. Publication. Trinity Publishing.

Trinity’s Freedom. Publication. Trinty Publishing.

 Naturally Inspired. Publication. Trinity Publishing.

 Group Exhibition – Manito-Art League 44^th Annual Art Show. (Juried show - Grand Prize Winner).

2008________________________________________________________________________

·        Solo Exhibition – “Trinity’s Freedom” Gallery Up North, Lac du Flambeau, WI. 

·        Group Exhibition – Parkside Gallery, Minocqua, Wisconsin.

·        Chasen Museum. Madison, Wisconsin.

·        Madison Museum of Modern Art. Langer Member. Madison, Wisconsin

·        Solo Exhibition - October - Current watercolors - XEL Gallery, N.Carolina.

·        Solo Exhibition - Current watercolors - Gallery 210 CIMC. UW-Madison.

·        Virtual Exhibition - Aesthetic Tapestries - christinealfery.com   

·        Solo Exhibition - Photo exhibition - Butterflies - Gallery 210 CIMC. UW-Madison

Christine Alfery is a northern Wisconsin based  abstract expressionist artist who is committed to creating one of a kind, unique, original works of art . Christine believes that her abstract paintings are  Divinely inspired .  She has held this belief for many years and honors it when she paints. Christine states that there is something extremely beautiful and powerful within me that emerges when I paint."  She embraces this feeling and treasures it.

Christine's acrylic and watercolor paintings are not pre-planned. Each contemporary piece of art,  evolves. This spontaneity allows Christine's paintings to reflect the extraordinary character of the special moments in which the work  was created.  These moments are Divine moments for Christine and  are filled with The Grace  that surrounds her.  There are so many things in this work that try to influence our "souls" our spirits,  her soul, her spirit, so many things that try to steal The Grace, The Divine within us. Christine protects this spirit in her soul, and savors it every time she revisits one of her paintings.  She invites you to allow your soul your spirit to visit hers through her art work. 

Christine Alfery is a post  modernist abstract expressionist painter .  Just what is  abstract expressionism?  Abstract Expressionism is a movement in U.S. painting that began in the late 1940s. Many artist's today, such as Christine, still paint in the abstract expressionism style because they relate to the abstract expressionist movement and what it stands for. Early in the 1930's abstract expressionism influenced by the radical paintings of Arshle Gorky and Hans Hofman and by the immigration in the late 1930s and early '40s of many European avant-garde artists to New York. The abstract expressionist movement itself is generally regarded as having begun with the paintings done by Jackson Pollock, Robert Raushenberg and Willem de Kooning in the late 1940s and early '50s. They would gather together in a New York cafe after painting in their studios all day and talk about what they believed in and how they were expressing it in their works. Christine like these artists resists the leveling of culture into categories and pre-packaged notions of how things should be .

Other artists who came to be associated with the abstract expressionist movement include  Newman, Adolph Gottlief, Robert Motherwell, Lee Krasner and Ad Reinhard. Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still and Philip Guston, Cy Twombly and Helen Frankenthaler,  Christine Alfery easily associates with the artists from the abstract expressionist movement. In her paintings she makes marks that cry out their own sense of freedom and independence. Christine  discards the notion of painting figurative, representational subject-matter. She believes that each mark she paints, each line she paints each color she places on a painting has their own history and it's own subject matter. Each is a thing in itself, yet each relate to the others that are placed with it. The unified whole of her paintings is that they are eternal and can become something new every time they are viewed.  Christine's Alfery's abstract expressionist paintings assimilate the style and freedom of these earlier artists but especially her paintings resemble the work of Frankenthaler, de Kooning and Twombly.

The abstract expressionist movement comprised many painting styles but shared several characteristics. The abstract expressionist paintings were usually abstract that is they depicted forms not found in the natural world . Abstract    expressionists emphasized freedom of emotional expression, technique, and execution; they displayed a single unified, undifferentiated field, network, or other image in unstructured space. The canvases abstract expressionists paintings were painted on were large, to enhance the visual effect and project monumentality, power, freedom and personal expression. The abstract expressionist movement had a great impact on U.S. and European art in the 1950s; it marked the shift of the creative centre of modern painting from Paris to New York.