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Kris Iltis Bio:

I grew up in Japan coloring with oil pastels called Craypas. They were wonderful with rich colors that smeared all over. I decided I was brilliant with my coloring until one day a classmate in the 4th grade told me I had “scribbly hands” and I was no longer allowed to color in her coloring book. Crushed and frustrated, I knew she was right. My coloring was a mess.

In high school I discovered the camera. Not wanting to trust my hands I continued to dismiss my painting and drawing skills and went on to earn a degree in Art and Design/Communications using the lens of the camera. Through photography I could compose my images and ideas.

It wasn’t until my son went to kindergarten that I began to draw again in earnest with my odd perspective and “scribbly” hands.

I went back to school to study painting and figure drawing and found myself winning competitions and selling my work. Studying with many wonderful artists I was soon teaching students in my studio and through community art programs. My career led me to work for two major art museums in art education, where I was inspired by continuous exposure to the great paintings by European and American artists.

Artists are informed and influenced by the works of both their predecessors and their contemporaries. We seek to find a resolution of a visual problem. There are many choices in that resolution and often artists will paint an object many times over, just to understand it.  My paintings are all part of that process. Sometimes I get very close to just what I want… “scribbly hands” and all.

After thirty years of teaching, painting and studying art, I’m only now beginning to understand the unique choices we have in our approach to a visual image. Just like the choices we have in life. You put your head down, figure out what gets you excited and go.

Kris paints and teaches in her studio in Parker, Colorado. Her award-winning paintings are included in private and corporate collections across the country.”