Southern California native Kris deYoung, has been a practicing artist since receiving her BA in Visual Arts from UC San Diego in the 1970's, where she had two one-woman shows and several group showings. She has received numerous awards, lead a series of Art Happenings, and taught art classes for teenagers and adults. While at UCSD, her master painting teacher was Manny Farber, plus she received a UCSD Chancellor's Scholarship for graduate studies in visual arts. (During that time she painted under the name of Kris Michel.)
She has studied native edible and useful plants since building a cabin in northern California. While in Oregon she designed for the theater, and has recently volunteered as a parabotonist for the San Diego Natural History Museum. Love of plant and flower shapes permeates her artwork.
Since the 1990's, she has studied painting and drawing with Irina Gronberg, Ken Goldman and Robert Sanchez through the Athenaeum, UCSD and Mesa College.
She is a member of the Spanish Village Art Center and the La Jolla Art Association, where she serves as president since 2008. She has also held memberships and been selected for juried shows for the Museum of the Living Artist and the Clairemont Art Guild. She has artworks regularly selected for exhibit at the San Diego County Fair, permanent wall murals on display at Mid-City College in San Diego, and 12 oils and watercolors in the Historic Hawaiian Home on 300 First St., Coronado.
Her recent "Native Plant Series" combines richly painted textural images of the world's native plants and their habitats, while asking the viewer to consider how human activity, represented by hard-edge or abstract elements, intrudes into the beauty and serenity of their environment. Each painting begins with a walk or a hike in the surrounding countryside. She captures the native plant images with a Sony digital camera, manipulates the images on her computer with Adobe Photoshop, creates a print and uses that as subject matter for the final oil or mixed media canvas. She paints in oil, watercolor and also experiments with mixed and drawing media.
Memberships: La Jolla Art Association, Spanish Village Art Center
Website: http://www.krisdeyoung.com