Your shopping cart is empty.
Born -1959: Los Angeles, California Resides: La Quinta, California
Painting is my life long spiritual practice as well as a craft I continually develop as images come to me to be realized. Like a musician, I move between styles, themes and concepts as I explore my imagination with paint, charcoal and other mediums. My life and my art are one.
I've been an artist for more than a few decades. Over time, new styles emerge from my fingertips. I don't entirely leave my older styles behind when I am in love with my newest work. Like replaying a favorite old song, I dip back into past styles now and then when I need the language they shape to express myself in the present moment.
Born in Los Angeles in 1959, I grew up at the beach and spent time in the mountains. As an adult, I lived in the Pacific Northwest town of Bend, Oregon for 30+ years, first on a ranch east of town, then near the Cascade mountain range on the west side of Bend. Now I'm a bit of a nomad with a home base in the Mojave Desert town of La Quinta, California.
I began my professional artistic life at the age of 14, painting signs for the local ski area near my family's summer cabin in Big Bear Lake, California. A long, winding road later, I had paid for my University of Oregon Bachelors of Fine Arts degree, painting window watercolor signs for merchants. All of those roadside paintings of lucky fishermen, a variety of Santas and other seasonal images led to a stint as the lead lettering and mural artist for Carlson Sign in Bend, Oregon. I painted roadside billboards 12' tall by 24' wide, 40 hours per week for a few years. It was a good living that left me 3 days a week to practice life drawing and experiment with painting mediums.
Computer imaging became the end of the billboard/mural painting business. I got a position teaching art classes at Central Oregon Community College in 1991 and continued teaching for 5 years as I developed a business as a ceramic tile designer/manufacturer. For about 10 years I sold my Cristina Acosta "signature line" of ceramic tile through retailers like Ann Sacks Tile & Stone and Home Depot Expo.
Commercial and fine art melded for me. My artisan tile images led to my "Paint Happy" easel style, which morphed into an art instruction book. I wrote and painted, Paint Happy! (North Light Books ©2002, 2004). The publication of Paint Happy! led to licensing those images into home decor, illustrating a few children's books and gallery exhibits. I kept my eye developing with explorations of different painting styles, delving into the traditions of plein aire painting, then diverging into multi-medium metallic work.
Meditation became part of my work along the way and now I experience my artistic process as flow. The world has changed quite a bit during this past century and I am still painting.
The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates said, "Ars longa, vita brevis / art is long, life is short," the familiar Latin translation reverses the order of the original lines, stressing the long-lasting impact of art over the brevity of life. In my sixth decade, I very much feel that truth. Beneath everything is love. That is the true substrate under-pining all of my work.
Cristina Acosta Art Studio has been designated as a "Trusted Art Seller" with The Art Storefronts Organization. You can shop with confidence, knowing that I stand behind the quality and value of my art and related products.
The natural world. A walk on a beach, through a forest, swimming or paddling a freshwater river or lake or the ocean. I have spent a lifetime bathing in nature.
Classical drawing and painting techniques are my foundation. Exploration and experimentation are my process.
Creating art both on and off of my easel, including: Gallery exhibits, writing & illustrating, ceramic tile, licensing, teaching, billboard murals, interior design & architectural color expert.
This is only visible to you because you are logged in and are authorized to manage this website. This message is not visible to other website visitors.
Thank you for signing up for my newsletter. Your support enables me to paint, and for that I am most grateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
SAVE 20% ON YOUR FIRST ORDER!
Enter your email below and we'll email you a 20% OFF Coupon right now!
This offer is valid for NEW CUSTOMERS only!