Cristi Rinklin
The impulse to capture and save experiences is a distinct behavior reflecting this cultural moment. How images are stored and retrieved through memories, photographs, or data files offers fugitive modes of recall that eventually break down at the edges. This notion of impermanence is a persistent throughline in my work. I wonder what remains when we no longer exist? Can memory linger outside of human consciousness, like a signal waiting to be received? I consider these questions as I witness the natural world changing radically, in real time.
Simulations of the natural world such as virtual reality, gaming, and cinema, mediate our visual experiences, creating feedback loops where it is impossible to discern an origin. This exchange between technological and analog input is at the heart of my process. I photograph and digitally alter the natural world around me, then make it tangible again through the slow and intentional act of painting. The lush, painterly quality of my work contrasts against the hollow flatness of digital space, resulting in something that no longer resembles our lived experience. It is an attempt to hold onto beauty as it breaks down before our eyes.
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Cristi Rinklin’s paintings, installations, and works on paper explore the back-and-forth between technological and analog simulations of the landscape. Rather than faithful representations of the natural world, her work manifests as illusory composites; environments situated between geographical, virtual, and psychic space.
Rinklin received her MFA from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 1999, and her BFA in painting from Maryland Institute, College of Art in 1989. She has exhibited her work in galleries and museums throughout the United States for over twenty-five years. She has had numerous national and international exhibitions in galleries and museums, including solo exhibitions at the Newport Art Museum, the Fitchburg Art Museum, and the Currier Museum of Art, and her work has included in solo and group exhibitions in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Baton Rouge, Seattle, Rome, Florence, and Amsterdam. Her paintings have been included in the 2010 and 2012 Northeast edition of New American Paintings. Rinklin is the recipient of grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Berkshire Taconic Artist’s Resource Trust and the Jerome Foundation Fellowship. She has been awarded residencies at the American Academy in Rome Visiting Artist and Scholar program, and the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts. Her work is represented in Boston by Ellen Miller Gallery. Rinklin is currently a Professor at the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, MA. She lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts.
