Krista Townsend


EDUCATION & RESIDENCIES
Fellow, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA – 2017
Apprentice to Edward J. Reed, The Art League School, Alexandria, VA – 2006 – 2007
Master of Art, Medical and Biological Illustration, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine – 1998
The Schuler School of Fine Arts, Baltimore, MD – 1994 – 1996
Bachelor of Art, The School of Art and Architecture, The Pennsylvania State University – 1994

HONORS AND MEMBERSHIPS
2017 Riverviews’ 9th Annual Juried Art Show, Lynchburg, VA, Juror – Marta Staudinger
2016 Third Place, RVA Architecture and Landscape, Juried Exhibit, Crossroads Art Center,
Richmond, VA
2015 Juror, Central Virginia Watercolor Guild, Charlottesville, VA
2015 Juror, Peace Lutheran Church, Charlottesville, VA
2014 Juror, Charlottesville City School Eco Fair Artwork Content, Charlottesville, VA
2013-2018 Member, Piedmont Council for the Arts, Charlottesville, VA
2010-2016 Member, McGuffey Art Center, Charlottesville, VA

GALLERIES
Glavé Kocen, Richmond, VA
Les Yeux du Monde, Charlottesville, VA
Bee Street Studio, Dallas TX

SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Country Club of Virginia
Dominion Power
Major, Lindsey and Africa, LLC
Martha Jefferson Hospital (Sentara)
Towne Bank
University of Virginia Medical Center
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health System

PUBLICATIONS
Sargent, Sarah, Immersion, April, 2018
“Spring Springs Forward with Springs, Sprockets, and Wildflowers at Glavé Kocen!”, Glavé Kocen Gallery, April, 2018
Derby, Elizabeth, “Lightness of Being,” Cville, July 26, 2017, p. 33
“Two Painters who are on Fire Close the Year out at Glavé Kocen!“, Glavé Kocen Gallery, December, 2016
Sargent, Sarah, “Warm Welcome Group show at McGuffey Invites Colorful Observations”, Cville Weekly, May 22, 2013

Biography 

Krista graduated in 1994 from The Pennsylvania State University with a BA focusing on painting and biology. She then studiedfor two years at an atelier, The Schuler School of Fine Arts, in Baltimore, MD. In 1998, she earned her MA from the Johns Hopkins University in Medical and Biological Illustration. After establishing herself as a medical illustrator, she returned to painting and studied with painters at The Art League School in Alexandria, VA and completed a yearlong apprenticeship with portrait and landscape painter,Edward Reed.In 2007 she moved to Charlottesville, VA and began showing her workand sinceentered many private and public collections including the University of Virginia Medical Center, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health System,Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital, The Country Club of Virginia,and more.

Painting is about the joy of puzzling out how to express what I see and feel and translate that into something uniquely its own. I am inspired and humbled by the natural world, but I can only see it through human eyes. Thus, I often contemplate my place in this world and our human connection to and dependence on nature and each other. This leads me to paint everything from the beauty of a wildflower meadow to a friend in her garden or a quiet family moment in the home. I make it my practice to spend meaningful time and immerse myself in the places and with the people that I paint, getting to know them. Then, while painting, I try to focus on what’s happening in the moment on the surface of the canvas, and let the work lead me to find things I subconsciously absorbed about my subjects. There’s something magical in that process of discovery. My hope is that my work inspires a personal response in my viewer to act on our collective stewardship of nature as a means of caring for each other.