Kristina Bell DiTullo

Artist Statement:

The contrast between delight and torment, joy and pain compels me to explore the dichotomies that occur in everyday life. I create conceptual work about chaotic psychological states with a veil of beauty and order. Through my deliberate and controlled approach, I seek to draw the viewer in to my exploration of the themes of trauma, connection, despair, transformation and isolation. I begin with a visceral response to individual or collective stories about the imbalances that occur in life and the desires to contain uncertainty within some form of logic to give seemingly random events reason. As I learn about the intricacies of an experience, I translate it into a visual disguised in a systematic appropriation of artifacts of everyday life. I create my work to have a dialog at various levels, from the beauty of an aesthetic surface, to the deeper meaning behind my discoveries. Using culturally ubiquitous materials, such as bandages, erasers and satellite dishes in suburbia, I draw the viewer in to reflect on a shared human experience.

Kristina Bell DiTullo is a visual artist who currently lives and works in San Francisco, CA. She grew up in New York State and has lived throughout the U.S. Kristina earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1996 and an MA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2000. Kristina’s work is driven by her knowledge of psychology and human behavior stemming from her background working as an art therapist. She uses a precise, controlled, repetitive visual language to examine themes such as trauma, relationships, and resilience. Her current projects include works on paper, installations and sculptural pieces created from ubiquitous cultural objects. Her work has been shown nationally in exhibitions at various locations including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; the Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL; Ampersand International Arts, San Francisco, CA; the Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA; the Silvermine Guild Art Center Gallery, New Canaan, CT; and the New American Art Union, Portland, OR.