“Every child is an artist,” picasso said. The question is how to remain an artist as a grown-up.
It was never an issue for Kristin Thorsen, who was blessed with two highly creative parents whose example and encouragement helped lay the groundwork for an adult career. Not to mention a husband and daughter who are no less supportive today.
“Growing up, I was always surrounded by a place to draw or color,” says the West Virginia native, who came to Atlanta in 1986. “Art was always integrated into daily life.”
And it stayed that way. “My mother is a very accomplished, self-taught watercolor artist, and her creative influence has always been clear in my life,” Thorsen adds. “Although watercolor isn’t my medium, I’ve taken her love for all things creative and incorporated it into my career. As a child, I enjoyed solitude in my room to do anything creative, but I really became interested in the arts in high school.”
Thorsen lived in Atlanta for seven years until moving to Decatur, where her family resides today. She met her husband-to-be at her inaugural solo exhibit there. They married in 2007, and their daughter was born three years later. Close by, Atlanta and its various art communities remain a touchstone.
Her mature work began with cityscapes in acrylic on panel, but Thorsen now employs multiple approaches to connect with the viewer, as revealed in her current mixed-media work reflective of the home.
Thorsen’s art captivates through intricate details that reveal new surprises with each look, creating a layered experience that clients continuously rediscover. For her mixed-media pieces, Thorsen glues ripped paper bags onto a panel and covers the surface in gesso. Next to be applied are magazine cut outs, quotes, architectural plans and other found papers. This builds intriguing and complex layers within the piece.
“I maintain a sense of raw emotion and hidden depth that invites deeper exploration,” Thorsen says. “When I create a piece of work, I want the viewer to feel something, whether it’s the somber and obscure cityscapes or the more recent joyful and playful houses. My passion for art grows every day. This could be going to an opening or talking with a fellow artist about their work. Seeing the way artists use their materials to convey their message gets me excited. I also try in my daily life to purposefully view things as an artist, the way light hits glass or looking within the clouds or shadows for objects. This keeps my mind curious.”
A pivotal experience in her career came in 1999, when Thorsen, who is of Scandinavian descent, studied in Imatra, Finland. There she explored printmaking, painting, photography and independent studies. A year later, she graduated from Atlanta’s Perimeter College, then earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts, magna cum laude, on scholarship from the prestigious Atlanta College of Art in 2004. Since that time, she has participated in numerous solo and group shows while also organizing exhibits.
Thorsen’s work has been shown not only in galleries throughout the Atlanta area, including a yearlong exhibit at the Chrysalis Gallery, but can be found in private collections throughout the United States as well as in Finland, Russia, Norway, Ireland and Vietnam. She will be showing her work at the Coconut Grove Arts Festival in Miami in mid-February and is excited about a solo exhibit at the Hudgens Center for Art & Learning in Duluth, Georgia, later in the year.
Thorsen says she tries hard to be distinctive in her work and not derivative, to have her own clear voice and ideas as an artist and not borrow from others. But well-known artists have been an influence, not least Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele.
“I also find inspiration in contemporary art, seeing new ideas and how other artists use their materials, how they convey their message, how the work makes me feel,” she says. “All of that is very inspiring.”
Thorsen’s color palette has evolved as much as her subject matter. Her previous body of work was abstracted cityscapes, largely monochromatic or in hues of brown. “They were scenes without signs of human life that conveyed a darker mysticism,” she explains. “I worked through these themes in differing variations over the years. During the pandemic, I played with more colorful samples and struggled to incorporate that into my work.”
Taking an online mixed-media course in 2022 opened up an entirely new world for her. Thorsen felt invigorated and newly creative, deciding to focus more on the idea of home. “The textures and colors lit a spark in me,” she says. “I used collage, drawing and gel transfers and began adding wood elements. My father had taught me a lot about woodworking. I bought a laser cutter so I could make my own doors, windows and ladders to add to my mixed-media works. I wanted to make joyful work that was filled with color and positive messages and a little humor. I am hoping to continue to explore and grow this body of work, perhaps morphing the earlier work with the new.”
The change has been beneficial, as has attending several artist residencies that have given her a chance to explore, play and grow. Leaving home from time to time to focus solely on art and surrounding herself with other artists is essential to her well-being, Thorsen says.
Art as a profession and the life of an artist can be extraordinarily challenging, especially balancing work and family. “My mother tried to balance an art career while raising two children,” Thorsen recalls. “Now that I am grown, with a teenager, I am amazed at how much she accomplished balancing that life. It isn’t easy. I work while my daughter is in school, pick her up and get dinner ready, and eventually go back down to the studio to catch a few more hours of work. Dinners, sick days, doctors and dental appointments, visits to the vet are all obstacles in my daily work schedule.”
Fortunately, Thorsen relies on an affinity for play as fuel for creativity. “One needs to experiment, make mistakes and observe in order to grow,” she says. “Most of all, the greatest joy in my profession is simply that I get to do what I love. I work downstairs in my home studio. I don’t have office hours. I work as needed and around my family, although there is never enough time! But I’m happy to have the flexibility I enjoy and to be there for my husband and daughter.”
Thorsen says she has always enjoyed making contacts and good friends through art over the years, relationships that have inspired, challenged, supported and shaped her, including those within the Atlanta art scene.
“Since 2004, I have been organizing group and solo exhibits here and have participated in many others, as well as art fairs,” Thorsen says. “As a working artist, I’ve seen the Atlanta art scene explode. Each little pocket has its own thriving community. One of the recent exciting events was the Atlanta Art Festival at the Pullman Yards, where art galleries and artists from the South were represented on a huge scale. I’m proud that Atlanta has stepped up and is so well represented in the contemporary art world.” *
Bill Thompson writes about the arts, design and travel. His latest book is As Luck Would Have It: A Journalist’s Memoir.
