“Silence is also conversation.”
This work is a cycle of remembrance, recognition, and forgiveness; an effort to show the circular, unending, and intractable nature of time; an exploration of the potentiality for transmutation. In addition to linking seemingly disparate moments, the work serves as a platform for reasonable emotional investigation rather than reactionary action. Of her work she says “I study historical events, cultures, figures, and methodologies, and then reimagine them. I think of each piece as a conversation between me, the material and time, and if I’ve done my job well, they have a life when the conversation is complete.”
Highland’s practice is driven by a deep desire to capture moments of simple, beautiful brilliance wherein the earth or sun have a conversation with what man has constructed. She feels we must constantly search for that beauty in Nature’s dominance in order to live lives respectful of what we have inherited. This work exists without interest in perfect representation- wholly focused on perception driven by connection to process and history. The planning, sketching, mixing, and preparations allow the material to have an equal place of importance as her hand. The composition is planned, but each step presents itself while the last dries. In that manner, the work never stagnates, the process is never predictable.
After 12 years dedicated exclusively to the Theatre and Film Arts as a Costumer and Wigmaster and finally an Artistic Consultant, Highland chose to focus on Clothing Design. During the course of her first collection, she painted a dress and could never turn back. The immediacy, terror, and thrill inherent to that manner of mark making was painstakingly explored- painting first on silk and then paper- where she remained for more than three years before working on canvas. After spearheading a year-long, fully-funded and scientifically-approached research project documenting her process with natural media, The Permacolor Project, Highland now primarily paints on wood and canvas. She mixes much of her paints herself through ancient methodologies utilizing oil and egg tempera. She also occasionally makes beeswax sculptures. Compositionally, she explores the fleeting and fluid nature of time and material through the insertion of shadows into varying man-made and natural settings.
Christel Highland resides and works in the Crossroads Arts District founded by her artistic mentor and friend, the great Jim Leedy. In addition the maintaining her art practice, she curates and manages Collect Level with her Partner, Artist Lori Raye Erickson, a new online gallery concept, and writes. She also has the tremendous pleasure of raising two incredible works of pure art, her sons Clive and Otto. They serve as studio assistants, fashion advisors, and her greatest source of inspiration.