WHERE YOU CAN VIEW MY ART IN PERSON

Alison Milne Gallery, Toronto https://www.alisonmilne.com/

Art Gallery of Hamilton https://aghartsales.com/

Book a Studio Visit with me k.sjaarda@gmail.com

WHAT PROFESSIONALS IN THE ART WORLD SAY

Lee Petrie 

Curator, Gladstone House, The Broadview Hotel & The Postmark Hotel

Kristin Sjaarda's stunning photographs were perfect for the inaugural exhibition in the Stairway Gallery at the newly renovated Gladstone House. The hotel’s design connects the historical with the contemporary. Kristin takes a similar approach in her work, using the imagery of the traditional Dutch still life to explore current environmental concerns. Visually, the impression was powerful: the large scale captured the attention of guests, who were then rewarded with a multiplicity of small details.

Tara Westermann

Gallery Director, Smokestack Gallery

The layered integration of historical influences with contemporary reinterpretations defines some of the most compelling features of Kristin Sjaarda’s work. While her botanical subject matter and high-contrast, vivid photographic images present her adaptation of the visual language of those paintings of her Dutch (Golden Age) ancestral heritage, it is her contemporary reimagining of the philosophical underpinnings of vanitas still life that offers the most formidable intrigue. In Sjaarda’s recent works, vanitas is no longer a symbolic reminder of the inherent transience of solely human mortality but rather looks farther outward instead – an admonition to respect and preserve the ecosystem and environment at large that supports human existence itself.

Mark Peck

Ornithology, Royal Ontario Museum

Kristin’s Baroque style not only shows the incredible beauty of the world around us but also elicits greater consideration and concern for the fragility of nature, too often taken for granted. They are wonderful, complex images that inspire me to care.

Jasmine Lazdins

Art Consultant, Art Gallery of Hamilton

Sjaarda’s compositions are truly arresting in person. Our eyes dart around, trying to grasp the maximalist jumble of flora and fauna arranged in seemingly impossible configurations. We instinctively start to catalog every blossom, leaf, insect, bird, oozing egg, and clump of honeycomb, as if deciphering a larger formula. These opulent elements coalesce into a multitude of references, invoking art historical tropes like vanitas and memento mori, while also addressing contemporary themes of global crisis and personal narratives related to places and nature.