acrylic on panel
30 x 30 cm frame size 43 x 43 cm
Krisztina was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1970 to Hungarian parents. The family moved to Fort Worth, Texas when Krisztina was a child. She graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in Fine Arts Painting. After university, Krisztina worked for several ceramic artists while continuing her own art. She then trained as a fine woodworker. In 2001 she moved to Dublin, Ireland where she pursued her own work full-time at Broadstone Studios. She exhibited widely in Ireland, the USA and internationally during this period. In 2005, she moved to Budapest where there was a burgeoning art scene. She and two other artists founded Sziv Studios there. In 2009, she moved back to rural Kilkenny, Ireland, where she now makes her home.
Krisztina took a hiatus from painting to learn to shepherd and farming, a lifestyle she had been interested in since childhood. While she continued to make art, albeit quietly and perhaps art of a different mien, as Krisztina says of this time, "I have always had a connection to landscape, to nature, to animals. My earliest memories are of the lush tropical landscapes of Venezuela and the harsh epic landscape of Texas. Growing up in a big city, it had always been a longing of mine to fully immerse myself in the land. That’s something utterly impossible living in the city and no matter all the attractions city life offers, my truer self lay in nature. I turned to sheep farming, training sheepdogs and shepherding, I worked as a gardener, and with thoroughbred racehorses. I would never take this time back. It gave me an intimate, daily connection to the earth. When I went back to painting full time, I found I was approaching my work with an intimate knowledge of the textures, the colours, the beauty of the natural world, a knowledge I never would have gotten as a mere spectator.''