Kristina Penhoet

Join Kristina Penhoet, the second prize winner of Inside Outside, Upside Down, for a conversation with juror Abigail McEwen as they discuss Kristina’s work and artistic process.

Kristina began working with fiber and textiles as a small child, learning to crochet and sew during her summer visits to her grandparent’s farm on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest. She continued to pursue her love of making during quiet moments while earning a degree in biology and working in healthcare. When she realized she needed to commit to a more creative life, Kristina attended Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, concentrating on sculpture and environmental design, and began working in model-making, film production and stage design. Inspired by the production design work and a continued interest in form and space, she pursued a graduate degree in architecture. After 10 years of architectural practice, she rekindled her love of making and rediscovered fiber as a medium. Originally from Oregon, Kristina has lived in Washington, DC, for 20 years, creating a life for her family and a naughty dog that wants to be good.

Abigail McEwen is associate professor of Latin American art history at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research and teaching interests span the modern Americas, with emphasis on the art of 20th-century Cuba and Puerto Rico, the transnational history of abstraction, and the postwar avant-garde. Recent publications include Revolutionary Horizons: Art and Polemics in 1950s Cuba (Yale University Press, 2016), Concrete Cuba: Cuban Geometric Abstraction from the 1950s (David Zwirner, 2016), and catalogue essays on Agustín Cárdenas, Zilia Sánchez, and Joaquín Torres-García.

IMAGE: Kristina Penhoet, How Many More?, 2020, Fiber, 86 x 101 x 58 in., Courtesy of artist