陈列您的艺术作品给每天无数的访客观看

Kristi Malakoff is a Canadian-born visual artist, exhibiting on an international scale, who has recently moved to British Columbia from Berlin, Germany. She is a 2005 BFA graduate of the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver where she was the recipient of many awards and scholarships, among them the Alvin Balkind Memorial Scholarship, the Helen Pitt Award and the Governor General’s silver medal for the top Emily Carr Institute graduating student of 2005. Since graduating, she has participated in artist residency programs at the Banff Centre, the Stride Gallery, Calgary, and SÍM, Reykjavík, Iceland. She has exhibited in an exhaustive schedule in both group and solo shows throughout Canada and in England, the US, Germany and Mexico. Her work has been featured and reviewed in most major Canadian newspapers, journals and arts-related magazines. In 2008, she received a Canada Council Project Grant for Visual Artists. Her work is held in private and corporate collections across Canada and the US.


ARTIST STATEMENT

As a child who grew up on Disney movies and books by Roald Dahl and C.S. Lewis, I have always been intrigued by notions of fantasy and the possibilities for escape into new, marvelous worlds via mundane objects such as a wardrobe (C.S. Lewis), a peach or an elevator (Roald Dahl). Parallel to this fascination was the delight I took, and continue to take, in the possibility of inanimate objects coming to life. As a serious child who was engaged from a young age in heavy discipline and competition, fantasy was my escape from the rigors of daily life.
Now, as an artist, I am becoming increasingly aware of my tendency to try to bring inanimate objects to life; in particular, I have been working on the 3-dimensional animation of 2-dimensional media including wallpaper, photographic images, paper currency and cereal boxes. By presenting these ubiquitous objects in a new way, I hope to both challenge their entrenched symbolism as well as to bring humanism and the element of the handmade back into these highly manufactured products. As I breathe new life into these insentient things, I also strive to create a unique, exquisite object from one that was previously mass-produced. This work can also be framed as a formal investigation – that is, as rebellion against the pervasive, 2-dimensional image and my identification as a sculptor, attempting to bring this image back into its pre-representational (3-dimensional) state.
Through my installation work, I am interested in creating a visceral experience for the viewer – allowing them an opportunity to be visually and emotionally transported to a place that alternates between beauty and foreboding, awe and intimidation and reality and the façade. I have always believed that a degree of fantasy – as a respite from the responsibilities of daily life – is crucial for human health. As such, I wish to provide this sanctuary to the viewer. Though I am also interested in enchanting the viewer, it is the profundity of this experience that intrigues me. In addition, in an art world that is often focused on the cerebral, I wish to add to the mix the experience of the corporeal.
Finally, much of my work is concerned with explorations of beauty. In a world that is currently fraught with chaos and uncertainty, I believe that there is a great need for experiences that are sublime (in the common sense of the term) and exquisite. I find that the experience of beauty is as profound as any other and one that is capable of precipitating great social change. While daily newscasts serve to deaden the senses, I wish to engage the senses. As one subject that I believe is capable of such perfection, nature is quickly becoming a major subject area in my work. Challenging urban development, I strive to put nature back in the world – allowing it to reassert itself within the urban or domestic context.

$100 Cabin

2005
One Canadian $100 bill
3.8cm x 3.8cm x 5.0cm

Swarm

2005/2007
6000 color photographs of butterflies
Variable

Swarm (detail)

2005/2007
6000 color photographs of butterflies
Variable

Garden (detail)

2005
5000 color photographs of flowers
Variable

Orchard

2005
6.7m of wallpaper, apple trees, apple box
6.7m x 2.7m x 3.1m

Orchard (detail)

2005
6.7m of wallpaper, apple trees, apple box
6.7m x 2.7m x 3.1m

The Glade

2006/2007
23000 color photographs of flowers
Variable

The Glade (detail)

2006/2007
23000 color photographs of flowers
Variable

The Glade (detail)

2006/2007
23000 color photographs of flowers
Variable

Meadowsweet

2006
25000 color photographs of flowers
Variable

Meadowsweet (detail)

2006
25000 color photographs of flowers
Variable

Installation Shot (Skull and Grabkreuze)

2008
10000 color photographs of flowers; black paper, pins
N/A

Grabkreuze (Grave Crosses)

2008
Black paper, pins
76.0cm x 114.0cm x 3.0cm

Resting Swarm

2008
21000 color photographs of bees
Variable

Resting Swarm (detail)

2008
21000 color photographs of bees
Variable

Star

2008
Actors' marking tape
274cm x 274cm

Caribou Migration (detail)

2008
Plywood
Variable

Deutsche Trachten (Dancers)

2008
16 German stamps – GDR/Bundesrepublik (1961-93)
13.0cm x 3.8cm x 10.2cm

Desert Cactus

2008
8 bills of foreign currency
5.0cm x 5.0cm x 7.6cm

Untitled V1 (Iceland Series)

2007
Felt markers on paper
127cm x 96.5cm