Kristina is a multimedia artist from the Philadelphia suburbs. She holds an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Art from Colby College.
My practice stems from over twenty years spent as an educator in the sciences, and my experience as a mother. As a middle aged, AFAB woman existing within these spheres, I consider the anxiety and trauma that strict gender norms imposed on me in adolescence while witnessing my child’s generation break down the notion of the binary and expand our understanding of gender. I use materials considered traditional in feminine craft, and am especially drawn to vintage sewing kits because the objects are imbued with the gender expectations of previous generations. In my work, I am constantly questioning my own place within the binary – how it came to be, how it is reinforced, how it has entrapped me. Using fabric, thread, buttons, and other familiar materials, I try to express the trauma that can be inflicted from strict binary expectations. I feel simultaneously called to and entrapped by the topic of gender and femininity in my work, and seek to question what we expect of artists who identify as women. Working within a society that claims the right to admire, admonish, use, and define femme bodies by, I try to undermine those structures by bringing to the fore the flimsy, unscientific argument that is the gender binary.