bio/statement
ON DRAWING... Based on Human and Life Drawings
My paintings are drawings that focus on life. Taking these elements from the drawings, such as the use of intuitive approaches to line-marking, my work conveys this process of working is very fast, but with very slow pacing to stop and reflect back up upon the life subject. I see painting as a “building up” process over time and drawing is an immediate response to images and materials put intuitively on the work surface. These fusions are often chaotic, emotional, and infused with the fluidity of movement. The process of abundance to minimal principles creates a balance and unity within the work.
"My work is emotionally driven. I explore those aspects of self that makes us HUMAN"
Cristina Natsuko Paulos
Cristina Natsuko Paulos - Artist Biography
Cristina Natsuko Paulos grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. She relocated to Las Vegas in 2002. She received her BFA from the California Institute of the Arts in the animation program in 2006. As an artist, she incorporates various techniques from her animation studies and applies them to her work creating impressions of movement. Her work focuses on that of mirror twin character and work based on life and female archetypes, as well as portraiture and imagery and subject matter drawn from life. Her work is focus on surrealist storytelling and often uses the media of painting, puppetry, and animation.
Paulos is also a burn and trauma survivor and mental health advocate. Often in her own work she reveals her personal journey to recovering, trauma and her own madness to sanity. She hopes to end the negative stigma of what it is to be “label” mentally ill and also hope to elevate others to break the stigmas.
She uses a variety of materials in her art making, including: paints, inks, dyes, crafts, handmade papers using recycled paper bags, canvas, wood and mixed media. During her studies at CalArts, she was reward the Prestigious Sesame Street Award, which she created an original short cartoon for PBS’ Sesame Street Workshop. Her films have screened in film festivals in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Her paintings have been shown in such preeminent locations as Joseph Watson Gallery (Las Vegas), Gallery Nucleus (Los Angeles), Gallery 1988 (Los Angeles), Phantom Galleries (Los Angeles), and Billy Shires’ La Luz De Jesus Gallery (Los Angeles). Her artwork has be recognized and rewarded by the Nevada Art Council. Two of her pieces are a permanent part of the Cirque du Soleil Contemporary Art Collection, Montréal Quebec, Canada. She recently completed an animation short for the “Life Is Beautiful Festival” located in Downtown Las Vegas.
“My artwork derives from life, vulnerability, juxtaposed with the cartoon surreal world,” says Paulos. “My goal is to reveal the marks and capture the articles we often remove from ourselves and in our personal identities whether in cartoon form or from life, of the perception. These would including our flaws, our uncomfortableness and our explorations of our own vulnerabilities when truly, completely naked, apart from our bodies and form. In often times, I use my own vulnerability and emotional journey in my work. I hope to show strength in vulnerability by using emotional driven approaches to art marking. I use materials such as: loose graphite, charcoal, acrylics, watercolor and gouache, sumi inks, dyes, on paper/ handmade papers, canvas and fabric. I hope to create work which show the organic foundations of humanness.”
Paulos’ works as a professional sign artist and sign painter, painter, puppet artist, cartoonist, art teacher and is a published illustrator.
Cristina Natsuko Paulos
Born in San Fernando Valley, CA
Resides currently in Las Vegas area
Education
BFA 2006 California Institute of the Arts, Character Animation
Grants/Awards/Fellowships
2014 Jackpot Grant, Nevada Art Council
2013 Jackpot Grant, Nevada Art Council
2011 Professional Development Grant, Nevada Art Council
2011 Cirque Du Soleil Cultural Action Support Grant
2010 Best in Show, First Friday Las Vegas Fundraiser Art Auction
2010 Jackpot Grant, Nevada Art Council
2008 Artist Fellowship Recipient, Nevada Art Council
2005 Sesame Street Workshop Scholarship
2000 Canvas Peddler Award, Brand Library Art Galleries
Solo Exhibitions
2017 Untitled, Joseph Watson Gallery, Las Vegas, NV
2015 Down the Rabbit Hole…, Gallery 6, Las Vegas, NV
2014 Rhythm, Line, and Stroke: Female, Tasty Space, Las Vegas, NV
2014 Rhythm, Line, and Stroke: Male, Winchester Cultural Art Gallery, Las Vegas, NV
2013 Help Is On The Way, Blackbird Studios, Las Vegas, NV
2011 Localized Anonymity, Blackbird Studios, Las Vegas, NV, Selected works featured at Caramel Lounge at Bellagio, Las Vegas, NV
2011 Intrinsic Duality, (Six person Group Show) La Luz De Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2009 Revisit: Who Cares for you?.., Black Maria Gallery (Project Room), Los Angeles, CA
2007 Who Cares for you? You’re only a pack of cards”, The Fall Out Gallery, Las Vegas, NV
Group Exhibitions
2020 Go! Figure, Shockboxx Gallery, Hermosa Beach, CA
2017 Grrrl Show, Apama Gallery, Huston, TX
2017 Mother May I—Thumbprint Gallery, La Jolla, CA
2017 Bared: The Art of Bras and Breasts, Spencer & Kuehn Fine Jewerly Studio, Morgantown, WV
2016 Small Space Fest, Emergency Arts, Las Vegas, NV
2016 Play, LAMAG Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2015 Coaster Show, La Luz De Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2015 26th Annual Juried Show, CAC, Las Vegas, NV
2015 Laluzapalooza, La Luz De Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2015 Platinum Blend, Modern Eden Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2014 Life is Beautiful, Western, curated by VAST Space Projects, Las Vegas, NV
2014 MAS Attack, VAST Space Projects, Las Vegas, Nevada
2014 Crossing the Mt. Diablo Meridian Baseline, TMCC Main Gallery, Reno NV
2014 Art of the Spectacular, bG at Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA
2013 Greeting from Las Vegas, Room 5, Gateway Motel, Las Vegas, NV
2013 Post it Show, Giant Robot Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2013 Some fine Women Drawing Room, Vast Space Projects, Henderson, NV
2013 Year of the Snake, Giant Robot Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012 Freak Show, WWA Gallery, Culver City, CA
2011 Small Works Group Show, Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2011 minUMENTAL: freshMEAT, Trifecta Gallery, Las Vegas, NV
2011 La Luz De Jesus' 25, La Luz De Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2011 Crazy for Cult, Gallery Nineteen-Eighty-Eight, Los Angeles, Ca
2011 Everything But the Kitsch 'N Sync, La Luz de Jesus Gallery, LA, CA
2010 Horrorwood, WWA Gallery, Culver City, CA
2010 Crazy for Cult 2, Gallery Nineteen-Eighty-Eight,, San Francisco, CA
2010 Everything But the Kitsch 'N Sync, La Luz de Jesus Gallery, LA, CA
2010 Character Matters, The Fall Out Gallery, Vegas, NV
2009 Under The Influence: He-man And The Masters Of The Universe, Gallery 1988, Los Angeles, CA
2009 Post-it Note Show, Giant Robot Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2009 Holiday Exhibition, Bleicher/Golightly Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2009, Femininity, Wizard Sleeve Toys and WST Worldwide, Art Basel-Miami, FL
2009 Hidden Treasures, Phantom Galleries, Curators Lark Pilinsky & A. Miziolek Long Beach, CA
2008 Crocodile Tears, Giant Robot Gallery, Curator Cheryl Kaminsky , NYC, NY
2008 All In It Together, Gallery Nineteen-Eighty-Eight, San Francisco, CA
2008 On, Of, and About Paper, OCCCA, Curators Shelly Bancroft & Peter Nesbett, Santa Ana, CA
2007 V Juried Show, Galeria Galou, NY, ARWI International Art Fair
2006 Round up Group Show, Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV
2006 Third Annual Marginalia Festival: A Night of Illustrated Objects And Live Sound, The Smell, LA
2005 Duck Fever Show, Mercado, Barcelona, Spain
2005 The Girl Show, Nucleus, Alhambra, CA
2004 Bridgin the Gap, Glasshouse, Pomona, CA
2003 BoS$, Winchester Community Center Gallery, Las Vegas, NV
2002 Group Show, Alamo Gallery, Las Vegas, NV
2000 Works on Paper, Brand Art Library Galleries, Glendale, CA (Canvas Peddler Award)
Pupperty Performances
2008 Toy Theatre Puppetry Performance.
“Monkey and the Crab”, Sahara Library West, Las Vegas,NV, Asian Pacific Heritage Festival,
Public Outreach Program, funding by Nevada Art Council.
2005 Toy Theatre Puppetry Performance.
“The Butchermen”, California Institute of the Arts, Theater I, Valencia, CA,
Directed by Jeanette Yew
Screenings of Animation
2014 Make your Bed, Life is Beautiful, at the Western, Las Vegas, NV
2007 Rid, Channel Frederator's The World’s Original Cartoon Podcast
2005 The Adventures of Marvelous Molly, Sesame Street Workshop, NY
2002 Rid, SMPTE/RAVA Student Film and Video Festival, Rochester, NY
Lectures and Workshops
2013 Intuitive Workshop. Blackbird Studios, Las Vegas, NV
2008 Official Speaker. Yaris Road to Success (College Career Fair), College of Southern
Nevada, North Las Vegas, NV
PUBLICATION and EXHIBITION CATALOGUES
2013 SOME FINE WOMEN, EXHIBITION CATALOGUE, LAS VEGAS, NV: P. 26, 28
2011 La Luz De Jesus 25 The Little Gallery That Could. Last Gasp of San Francisco: P. 192
2009 Garden of Eye Candy. Featured Artist. Bigbros Workshop and Basheer Graphic Books :
P.207-211
2008 On, Of, and About Paper, Exhibition Catalogue, OCCCA, Santa Ana, CA
Bibliography/Radio/Web
2014 Dawn-Michelle Baude, Las Vegas Weekly, CRISTINA PAULOS DEPICTS A BROAD RANGE OF DESIRES IN ‘RHYTHM, LINE AND STROKE’, September 3, 2014
2013 Jenessa Kenway. City Life, First Friday Round Up, July 4-10
2013 Kristen Peterson. Las Vegas Weekly, Seek out Help Is On The Way,July 4-10
2011 Featured Artist, default magazine, Issue 13
2011 Jarret Keene. Las Vegas’ Seven, Art Pick, June 2-8
2011 Melissa Arseniuk, Flavorpill, Editor’s Pick Art: Painting and Drawing, June 9
2010 Jacie Urquidi-Maynard. Whirlygig Inc. First Friday Fundraiser, Examiner.com,
2010 Ken Harman. Intrinsic Duality , Hi-Fructose: the blog , July 06, 2010
2010 Guest on Radio Broadcast: KNPR's State of Nevada, First Friday: Artist Interview,
Nevada Public Radio, April 02
2010 Jenessa Kenway. First Friday Roundup, Las Vegas' City Life
2010 PJ Perez. At First Friday, Character Matters, Las Vegas' Seven,:P.82 March 04
2009 Liz Ohanesian. “Creates Hanafuda Cards with a Lolita Sensibility”, LA Weekly: Style Blog , October 15
2009 Featured Artist. C-Heads Magazine, Issue 16: P.80-91
2009 Featured Artist. House of Tate , Issue 12
2008 GRAB Magazine, Issue 4
2009 Featured Artist. Notcot Blog, notcot.org
2009 Featured Artist. Design Milk Blog, design-milk.com : October 07
2007 Featured Artist. Vain Magazine, Issue 2 (page 44)
2007 Jarret Keene. “Flower Power” Las Vegas' City Life, April 27, :56
2007 Jennifer Henry. “Artful Ideas” , 944 magazine, June 2007: 52
2007 Beverly Bryan. “Art Dealing” , Sunrise View,
2007 “Out and About”, H+D Home and Design, April :130
2007 Jarret Keene. Las Vegas “Pick of the Week: The Science of Cute”, Las Vegas City Life, January 18
2006 Featured Artist. Juxtapoz Magazine Online, juxtapoz.com
Collections
cirque du soleil corporate collection