Mind Mending
Kristina Rogers understands the delicate dynamics of the brain when it comes to self-care and mental health. The Ann-Arbor, Michigan based-artist is not only an advocate for awareness and social change in issues of mental wellbeing, but the artist’s work is often a vessel for mind mending in a certain sense. Through dedicated labor, Rogers is able to translate the ambience and essences of places we feel safest to explore difficult emotions into 2-dimensional formats in soft abstract print-work. The artist is unrestricted when it comes to finding new ways to explore ideas of identity and connection as well. In sensitive, organic sculptural mixed-media work, Rogers creates physical manifestations of many of the most challenging non-physical sensations to pin down. Kristina Rogers is an artist who embraces fluidity in medium, healing, and difficult conversations, and in this way gently pushes down barriers to vulnerability and peace of mind.
Part One: Who is Kristina Rogers?
Question #1: Who are you?
Hi, I’m Kristina! I’m a rising junior at the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design. I love rocks, garbage, and being outside. I’m a collector of all objects and admirer of all things. As someone with chronic depression and OCD, I have a passion for social change and mental health awareness. I love tattoos, being in the sun, and swimming in lakes. I’ll do anything for my friends and coke slushees.
Question #2: Who are you as an artist?
As a queer, gender non-comforming artist with a strong passion for environmentalism and social change, most of my work deals with issues of mental health and identity. I LOVE garbage, and am fascinated by garbage and object making. I work mostly with printmaking, fibers, and sculpture, and love to mix the three together. Oftentimes I work with texture, space and form, and color. Lately, I’ve been working with the idea of safe spaces and the interaction between nature, humans, and objects. Lots of my work also revolves around repetitive labor, tedious technique, and the budgeting of energy.
Question #3: What do you think about while creating?
While making, I think about everything that makes my brain and heart hurt because the physical labor of my work relieves my anxiety and allows me to think more clearly.
Question #4: What is something you wish someone had told you at some point in your life?
Take care of yourself. Your own happiness is your first priority. Your body is perfect the way it is and you don’t ever need to change it unless you want to. Being depressed is not your fault, and give yourself the respect of acting accordingly.
Question #5: Why do you need art your life?
I need art in my life because it IS my life. I feel so strongly that making and sharing is my purpose, and that the arts are the only thing that is truly real. Everything in our world is made up like the stock market, or driving rules, but art is the human response to the human experience which is undeniably real. Love, pain, connection, curiosity, etc. are the some of the only natural experiences we have, and we must share them with each other!
Question #6: Is your artwork for yourself or for others?
Both. My process and my methodology serve my emotional and physical needs, and my final work serves as a way for me to connect with others. It gives me the opportunity to have new experiences, but also allows other to see and hear me.
Question #7: What is your escape?
Music, food, nature, and my friends.
How would you describe your work and practice?
My work is about environmentalism, identity, mental health, and connection. I am fascinated by object making and laborious processes. Much of my work originates as writing as it is a generative process for me. I have always been a drawer but have in recent years branched out to be interested in the spatial value that much of my 2D work cannot offer me.
24″ x 18″
Woodcut Print, Oil-based ink
2021
This piece is all about creating 3D spaces on a two dimensional surface. I wanted to create safe spaces or safe havens for people with mental illness. The goal was to have viewers say ‘I want to be in there,’ prompting self-reflection of why. I thought that the labor used to create such big, layered prints paralleled the labor it takes to physically create a safe space for yourself in real life.
24″ x 36″
Woodcut Print, Oil-based ink
2021
This piece is all about creating 3D spaces on a two dimensional surface. I wanted to create safe spaces or safe havens for people with mental illness. The goal was to have viewers say ‘I want to be in there,’ prompting self-reflection of why. I thought that the labor used to create such big, layered prints paralleled the labor it takes to physically create a safe space for yourself in real life.
16″ x 18″ x 6″
Wax, Found Objects
2021
This piece is a play on a birthday cake. Birthdays are a celebration of the passing of time and the making of memories. I wanted to focus on the terribly sad side of birthdays as they are also celebrating the loss of time, loss of childhood, the daunting nature of aging, and inevitably put lots of pressure on someone to furiously enjoy every moment of a 24 hour time span every 365 days. This pressure, and the monolithic sadness that can come with birthdays is almost sadistic in nature, and has therefore inspired the ‘sadistic birthday cake’. These themes all tie very closely with the emotions and experiences I have from depression and other mental illnesses.
45” x 36”
Cotton, Silk Organza
2020
This piece is a visual representation of silence in my head. Silence is something I actively seek out as someone who is constantly bombarded with rapid, repetitive thoughts. My OCD creates a manic environment in my head that buries the little, pure silence I can achieve. I often have to work through layers and layers of compulsions and anxious thoughts to achieve a blissful, calm silence.
varying
Acrylic Yarn, Milk Carton, Wax, Acrylic Paint
I’ve always struggled with disordered eating and the consumption of things I should not consume. So does this guy
| Where/ How can Vacant Museum viewers see more of your work and where can they purchase it? |
| My instagram, @liquidcow.jpg and my website https://kristinarogers.cargo.site. Commisions and prints can be made by contacting me through insta DM, or by email at krrogers@umich.edu. |