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I pursue interaction and perception from my role as observer, occupied by the unremarkable and in the relationships that exist within our everyday exchanges. I am interested in the ordinary and the staged, the potential for theatricality within the banality of the everyday. Drawing from the quotidian and familiar, I navigate the space between seeing and describing, interpretation and invention.

Reflecting direct encounters with objects in my environment, I draw from still life, portraiture, and landscape, the pillars of perceptual painting. In this work houseplants are surrogates for figures, plant portraits that entangle with vivid backdrops or sit unadorned on studio furniture. Sweet or ostentatious patterns serve as backdrops for these tableaus and recall bed sheets, wallpaper, or couch cushions, the stuff of home. I want these paintings to feel lush and verdant, offering tactility and abundance steeped in pure visual pleasure.

During my time in Italy this summer, I worked en plein air, both anachronistic and romantic in our contemporary time. I aimed to work through the problem of squaring my interest in the mundane against the heroic landscape, making work that sought to strike a balance between the sparse interiors of my humble apartment and the spectacular Italian landscapes that unfolded around me.

Working this way felt deeply connected to the act of painting, experiential in the purest of terms, and I found the challenge of chasing the light and the urgent need to respond to a shifting situation to be invigorating. I have aimed to hold onto that energy and bring that sense of urgency back to my home studio to inform my ongoing body of work.

- Christina Renfer Vogel, November 2017

Christina Renfer Vogel earned a MFA in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art in 2005 and a BFA in painting from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, in 2003. She joined the faculty at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2013, where she serves as assistant professor of painting and drawing. Prior to UTC, Christina taught at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and worked in development at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. 

She has exhibited nationally and has attended artist residencies at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. Christina is a recipient of awards including a 2014-15 UTC Research and Creativity Activity Grant, a Nebraska Arts Council Independent Artist Fellowship, and a grant from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation.

* select works are in-progress