Interview with artist Christine Ilewski

By Roxanne Phillips

Christine Ilewski. “Late Winter Sunset.” 2020. Acrylic Monoprint on Paper, 9"x12”. $100.

About the artist: Christine Ilewski lives in Alton, IL. She received her BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, did masters work at Lindenwood University and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville where she completed K-12 teaching certification. She has been the Visiting Artist for Liquitex for 20 years, bringing a materials & methods workshop to university campuses around the Midwest. However, with schools closed due to COVID-19, this position is indefinitely suspended. Her work is primarily acrylic with multiple mixed media elements. Her studio work can be seen at: Illinois State Artisan Shops; Museum of Contemporary Art, New Harmony, IN; Ariodante Gallery, New Orleans, LA; and in many private collections.

She describes her current work: "My work has always been “personal.” My work has reflected my experience as a woman, a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter; a domestic, intimate life. Landscape has almost always been the background to my narratives, but in my most recent work it seems to have become my center... a place of reflection, a still point from which everything else revolves. These landscapes are bubbling up from a subconscious stream, a “river” of monoprints. With a new studio overlooking the Mississippi, the mighty river runs through all my work. And all the previous “narration” seems to have shifted to the edges as I seek to stand still in its midst."

Christine is also the founder of the Faces Not Forgotten project, which uses portraits to memorialize young victims of gun violence. Christine was awarded the 2013 Critical Mass Stimulus Grant for this project and has exhibited the project throughout St. Louis and the campuses of UMSL, Rutgers, Northeastern and Blackburn universities. BBC America did a piece on FNF in 2017. All current Faces Not Forgotten physical exhibits have been frozen in place, but Christine continues keep the project mission to give comfort to Faces Not Forgotten families and raise awareness of this ongoing horrific loss.
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Roxanne Phillips: Describe your artistic process/technique.
Christine Ilewski: I’ve always done a lot of sketching with crayons and watercolor. I still love crayons! I have the big box; All the colors! Then I usually move to monoprinting. I like the surprise in the reverse and finding marks that I didn’t know I had made. I work in acrylic also because I like it’s spontaneity and I don’t have to think about any rules :-) The surface is important to me. I struggle with plain canvas. I like paper and  I have often worked on unusual surfaces gravitating towards domestic fibers, sheets, table cloths, pillowcases etc. Even today I find myself drawn to those materials; found objects that hold the presence of everyday life. Underlying everything though is color. Color evokes emotion for me.

RP: What is the biggest point of inspiration for your artwork?
CI: I don’t have a single biggest point of inspiration. In my earlier years, my core inspiration was from my interior domestic world as a woman, daughter, sister,  granddaughter, wife and mother. I did large figurative mixed media collages reflecting my personal story.

Then 10 years ago I was impacted by the violent death of a close friend which triggered a much earlier childhood loss of my dad. So I founded the Faces Not Forgotten project which I continue to direct today. All of my figurative work became focused on watercolor portraits of children lost to Gun Violence.

It’s like my inspiration split and now my personal artwork seems to have become more about stillness, process, and reflection on the power of nature to heal and ground us. It’s non-figurative. So my work split into the Faces Not Forgotten project and my landscape work.
 

Christine Ilewski. “Sweltering, Deep Indigo Shadows.” July 2020. Acrylic on Canvas, 40”x30”. Not for Sale.

RP: What was it that first prompted your career/activity as an artist?
CI: I always made art as a way to step into my interior world. As a child I made a lot of paper doll houses and imaginary interiors. Later, it was mixed media figurative stories. And now I try to paint mostly places of respite.

RP: Describe your path from deciding you want to be an artist to becoming one.
CI: I always made art as a child and took art lessons but after high school I actually went to work as a journalist. I did some graphic artwork also for the newspapers I wrote for. Later I had a chance to go to college as a single mom and I knew It was kind of crazy to study art but I needed to do that for myself. I ended up with my BFA and a k-12 teaching certification to support us. Teaching has been a constant in my career. I always continued to make art no matter what was happening in my life. It is almost a form of journaling and meditation.

Christine Ilewski. “Redbud Renewal.” 2019. Fiber, Acrylic on Found Baby Quilt, 5’x3'. Not for Sale.

RP: Why did you choose the medium you work in?
CI: I like to break the rules :-) and acrylics don’t have a lot of rules. They are very spontaneous, they mix with found objects well and work on unusual surfaces. And I’ve worked for Liquitex as a Visiting Artist for years so I get to play with all the mediums!

RP: What is it that you are most eager to convey through your art/ how do you want the viewer to receive or interpret or your art?
CI: Well, with Faces Not Forgotten I want people to see the individual humanity in each child’s eyes. And with my landscape work I want them to feel peace.

Christine Ilewski. “Jane's Backwaters 1.” 2020. Acrylic on Canvas, 24x18”. $500.

RP: What is most challenging to your art about St. Louis?
CI: I think it’s a little challenging for me to live on the other side of the river :-) when I was raising children it was hard to get to openings and meet other artists. And now with Covid it’s kind of that again. The art community has become so virtual through online galleries, Instagram, Facebook and I have had double retina detachments in the last few years so reading and posting online is difficult for me. I miss a lot of the virtual interaction. I look forward to physically going to openings and interacting with artists again someday.

RP: Why do you make art?
CI: I really can’t not make art. It’s just who I am. It isn’t necessarily all good ART, LOL.  I make art to know myself and keep my sanity. My ART is my response and processing of my life.

RP: What are you currently working on?
CI: I’m currently working on a series of paintings based upon my experience with nature and photos friends have taken of their quiet place, kayaking on the river, walking in the woods, The way nature comforts us, gives us respite during this difficult time,

Christine Ilewski. “Tangerine Dusk, 2020. Acrylic on Canvas, 40”x30”. $1,200.

RP: Are there artists who have influenced your art and how?
CI: There are so many artists I admire! I love the abstract pours of Helen Frankenthaler, the storytelling of Rauschenberg, Fairfield Porter, Chagall, the color of Matisse, Bonnard, and the plein air painters. I’m inspired by many STL artists; Carol Carter, Jennifer Weigel, David Ottinger. Jeremy Rabus, Cbabi, Kevin Dale Duncan, etc. etc.

RP: What do you do to support your art and how does that impact your art practice?
CI: I have always taught and I find inspiration in the students’ perspective. Demonstrating a process for students often acts as a spark or sketching process for my own work.  

RP: Do you have a sketchbook? What kinds of things do you put in it?
CI: I have lots of sketchbooks :-) I keep one in the kitchen, one when I’m traveling, I do daily sketches of the river out my studio window. I have had some that were specific to stories I was working out in collage. Some have become more like journals. I would be lost without my sketchbooks. And I don’t like fancy ones because I want to be free to make them very messy if necessary.  

Christine Ilewski's studio.

RP: Do you have a studio routine? Most creative time of day to work?
CI: I found I need to devote whole days to the studio. It doesn’t really work well for me to block out the mornings, afternoons or parts of days.

If I have the whole day I can begin with sketches, looking through art box or just warm ups of monoprints. But I try to make sketches, small monoprints daily. I keep a bay of materials near the kitchen and can quickly do some while cooking, etc. I'm a terrible cook obviously!

RP: Describe your dream studio.
CI: I’m very fortunate to have my dream studio now. We literally put a third floor on top of our house in Alton that overlooks the Mississippi River and gives me constant inspiration.

RP: How do you know when a piece of art is complete?
CI: This was a problem in my earlier career more than now. I think I have tended to overwork pieces in the past. Now I just kind of know when a piece is finished. There’s usually a point where I walk away and start a new piece. I often have multiple pieces going at the same time which allows me to let one rest while I’m thinking about another. Sometimes I’ll go back into one of these pieces after letting it rest awhile but often this is my gut way of knowing it’s completed.

Christine Ilewski. “Late Winter Sunset.” 2020. Acrylic Monoprint on Paper, 9"x12”. $100.

RP: What is your preferred way to exhibit and sell your art?
CI: I prefer to have my work in galleries. I’ve never been good at self marketing. I still enjoy entering shows to exhibit with other artists. I have a nice little gallery in New Orleans that seems to fit.

RP: What is the biggest challenge with being an artist and juggling all life throws at you?
CI: Just getting to the studio! Juggling family life, work and the Faces Not Forgotten project usually puts my studio time last and I would like to make it first. I have found I need to devote an entire day to the studio to clear my head and really produce something.

RP: What is your future creative life?
CI: I hope to never stop painting! I’d like to show these new pieces since Covid began, to participate in some plein air painting events, to experience the spontaneity of painting on site. And I’d like to do an artist residency possibly teaching and exhibiting from it.

I hope to keep exhibiting the Faces Not Forgotten project with my lecture on "the Power of Art to Shift Our Social Consciousness." So in that sense I imagine I will always be teaching.  I’m also excited to share the new children’s book that I’ve published about my social justice friend who inspired the Faces Not Forgotten project.

RP: What is your dream project?
CI: I'd like to do some really larger work. I've experimented working in my backyard on loose surfaces and canvas.  I always wanted to do a children's book and have done that now. It was fun. I would like to see the FNF project be part of a large exhibit in DC.

Christine Ilewski. “Sultry Window View.” 2019. Acrylic on Canvas, 24”x12”. $400.

RP: What is your most important artist tool? Is there something you can’t live without in your studio?
CI: I really love my handmade gelli-plate LOL. It’s a monoprinting tool. I made one myself with gelatin at the beginning of Covid because I needed a really large surface to pull a 22"x30“ monoprint. Without having a press at home it gives me a very detailed print.

RP: Do you think that creativity involves putting your heart and soul into your work? Or is it more like letting your mind flow freely to witness the surprising results of your actions?
CI: I think letting my mind flow freely is allowing my soul to surface in the work. If I think too hard about a piece then it seems to lose it’s spirit . This is all built upon the premise that early on I learned basic skills like perspective, design, process that just fall into place as I need them now.

RP: If you had to start over, would you choose a different path in your career?
CI: I wish I had gone straight to graduate school after getting my BFA vs. the teaching certificate. It was much harder to pursue my masters later.

RP: Best advice you were ever given?
CI: Paint what you know.

Alton, IL-based artist Christine Ilewski.

Learn more about Christine Ilewksi: www.chrisilewski.com and https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/christine-ilewski and http://facesnotforgotten.org/
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Roxanne Phillips is an artist and art educator based in St. Louis since 2001. She earned a MFA in Printmaking & Drawing from Washington University in St. Louis and BFA in Painting & Drawing from University of North Texas. Roxanne is an adjunct art instructor at Washington University in St. Louis and has worked with Art Saint Louis since 2017 as Administrative Assistant and Installer. From 2018-2020 she was Master Printer for Pele Prints. Her works have been featured in numerous exhibitions throughout the St. Louis region including at Art Saint Louis, Crossroads Art Studio & Gallery, and St. Louis Artists’ Guild. Her work is currently available at Union Studio in St. Louis. She has served as exhibit Juror for several regional exhibits & art fairs. Roxanne is past Board member of St. Louis Women’s Caucus for Art.