About
Artist Statement
I tell stories and explore storytelling modes and traditions across cultures. My interdisciplinary projects include books, films, performances, photographs, paintings, and other imaginings often merged across genres and media. My work spans the fictional, parafictional, dramatic, comedic, and poetic. Regardless of form, I am interested in the concept of power and how it manifests itself in individual and societal contexts. Often my protagonists are those struggling to find power: marginalized people, animals, and other beings in situations they desperately want to control. I am particularly invested in telling women's stories and am deeply influenced by my Salvadoran-American background, upbringing in the South, and current life split between New York City and Washington.
General interests include the environment, technology, history, immigration, and disability. Commonly, I use animals and nature to examine these themes. Nature holds a lot of power that can teach and inspire us, as evidenced by all the folk tales involving animals. Making art of all kinds helps me think about how we get along with animals and how we can change our lives to be more like them. One of the many things animals have taught me is to be adaptable—to change with my environment and to make art that changes with my environment, even using materials from it. Like a bird making its nest! But another lesson from animals is that of stillness, as I've been reminded during the United States' ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
General interests include the environment, technology, history, immigration, and disability. Commonly, I use animals and nature to examine these themes. Nature holds a lot of power that can teach and inspire us, as evidenced by all the folk tales involving animals. Making art of all kinds helps me think about how we get along with animals and how we can change our lives to be more like them. One of the many things animals have taught me is to be adaptable—to change with my environment and to make art that changes with my environment, even using materials from it. Like a bird making its nest! But another lesson from animals is that of stillness, as I've been reminded during the United States' ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Artist Bio
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Christine Sloan Stoddard is a Salvadoran-American writer, artist, filmmaker, and theatre-maker. She is the founder of Quail Bell Press & Productions, including Quail Bell Magazine and the Badass Lady-Folk podcast. Her books include Desert Fox by the Sea, Belladonna Magic, Water for the Cactus Woman, and other titles. Previously, she was the first-ever artist-in-residence at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House and an inaugural AnhkLave Arts Alliance fellow at the Queens Botanical Garden.
During this pandemic era, Christine has had three books released: Heaven is a Photograph, Naomi & The Reckoning, and Hello, and New York: The Living And Dead. Her short films Bottled, Butterflies, and Drunken History screened in multiple virtual festivals and virtual events, and are now available on Amazon Prime Video. Her feature film Sirena's Gallery, which came out of her quarantine residency at 1708 Gallery, is currently making the festival circuit and will screen at the Byrd Theatre in Richmond, VA on August 27th. She also completed 17 commissioned murals from Fall 2020 through Winter 2021. Christine is a member of The Authors Guild, The Dramatists Guild, The Kaleidoscapes, and the Jounce Assemblage Experimental Film Collective. She earned her MFA from The City College of New York-CUNY and undergraduate degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University, including VCUarts. |
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Photo by George M Ivanoff.
