Featured Work
About
Kristen Peyton is a painter of color and light. She paints poetic moments discovered in her lived environs of home, nature, and community. She works from direct observation, imbuing her paintings with site-specific atmosphere and painterly breath.
Peyton earned a Master of Fine Art in Painting from the University of New Hampshire and a Bachelor of Arts from the College of William and Mary. She is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a resident of Richmond, Virginia. She works as the Gallery Director and Curator of the Flippo Gallery at Randolph-Macon College.
Artist Statement
My work is a gesture of hospitality. It is an invitation into the profound presence of a chosen visual moment. I offer to my viewer the gift of “eternal timefullness.” Artist and writer, Makoto Fujimura, speaks of eternal timefullness in his book Refractions: “A timeful experience is given when our minds are allowed to fully respond to the senses… It’s what William Blake, the eighteenth-century poet, meant when he wrote, ‘To see a world in a grain of sand, / And a heaven in a wildflower, / Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, / And eternity in an hour.’” Through my work I offer an attentive lens of captured light, time, and space. As if composing a haiku, I structure my work with poignant simplicity. I play on canvas in paint, tottering between abstraction and resolution. And with each piece, I hope to invite my viewer to pause, enter the created space of my works, stay a while, and experience something of the visual abundance of our world.
Solo Exhibitions
2021 Solo show, Quirk Gallery, Charlottesville, VA (upcoming)
2019 Presence, Eric Schindler Gallery, Richmond, VA, with formal Artist Talk
2019 Out my Window, Dwell Fine Art, The Plains, VA
2018 The Function of Light, Linda Matney Gallery, Williamsburg, VA, catalog essay by Elizabeth Mead
2018 Resonance, Lauren Kindle Studio and Gallery, Easton, PA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2020 Points of View, Dwell Fine Art, Washington, VA (upcoming)
2020 Benefit Invitational 2020, Mount Gretna School of Art, Mount Gretna, PA
2019 Prelude, Lancaster Galleries, Lancaster, PA
2019 Small Wonders, Dwell Fine Art, The Plains, VA
2019 Inspired by Nature: The Collection of Cheryl Dillard, Artists Collect Series, VMFA Studio School,
Richmond, VA
2019 Uneven Paving Stones, Biola University, La Miranda, CA
2018 Art at Kings Oaks, Kings Oaks, Newtown, PA
2018 100 Years of Women at W&M, Andrews Gallery, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
2018 Juried Exhibition, Blue Mountain Gallery, New York, NY (Juror: John Yau, poet, art critic, and essayist)
2018 Juried Exhibition, Blue Mountain Gallery, New York, NY (Juror: Betty Cuningham, director of Betty
Cuningham Gallery, New York, NY)
2017 A Celebration of Female Artists, Linda Matney Gallery, Williamsburg, VA
2017 National Juried Exhibition 2017, Oxford Art Alliance, Oxford, PA (Juror: Tom Padon, Director of the
Brandywine River Museum of Art, Chads Ford, PA), received First Place Juror’s Prize
2017 MASTER PIECES, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
2017 MFA Thesis Show, The Museum of Art, The University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH
2016 National Juried Exhibition 2016, Oxford Art Alliance, Oxford, PA (Juror: Jennifer Samet, Co-director of
Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York, NY)
2016 MFA National Competition, First Street Gallery, New York, NY (Juror: Lance Esplund, Art Critic at the Wall
Street Journal, New York, NY)
2015 Fresh 2015, Association for Visual Arts, Chattanooga, TN
2015 Emerging Artists 2015, The Drawing Room Gallery, Cos Cob, CT
2014 Untitled I, Linda Matney Gallery, Williamsburg, VA
2014 MSGoA Summer Exhibition, Mount Gretna School of Art, Mount Gretna, PA
2012 Senior Art Exhibition, Andrews Gallery, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
Honors and Awards
2017 First Place Juror’s Prize, National Juried Exhibition 2017, Oxford Art Alliance, Oxford, PA
2016 Diversity Recognition Award, Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, The College of William and
Mary, Williamsburg, VA
2015 Elizabeth Jones Award, The University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH
2012 Excellence in Studio Work Concentrating in Two-Dimensions, The College of William and Mary,
Williamsburg, VA
2011 Monroe Scholar, The Charles Center, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
(Financial support to implement creative research in Managua, Nicaragua)
Education
2017 MFA in Painting, The University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH
2012 BA in Painting and Latin American Studies, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
Residencies
2020 Visiting Critic and Four Pillars Resident, Mount Gretna School of Art, Mount Gretna, PA, with formal
Artist Talk
2017 The Jerusalem Studio School, Masterclass with painter Susan Jane Walp, Civita Castellana, Italy
2016 The International Center for the Arts, Residency with painter Martha Armstrong, Monte Castello di
Vibio, Italy
2015 Mount Gretna School of Art, Intensive Program with Brian Rego, Catherine Drabkin, Stephanie Pierce, and Mark Lewis, Mount Gretna, PA