Angie Crabtree's Biography

Background

Angie Crabtree is an 19-year-old artist from Santa Rosa, California. Growing up in the rural part of town, she spent her days riding dirt bikes, catching lizards and spending time at the lake. Now a third-year student at the San Francisco Art Institute, she is preparing for her career in the arts. Currently, she is attending the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam as an exchange student, and will spend the summer backpacking around Europe.

Angie’s main goal in life is to have a successful career in the arts. At age five, she started taking art class at S&G Art Studio in Rohnert Park, and began to teach there at thirteen years old. She spent all four high school years enrolled in ArtQuest’s Visual Fine Arts 4–year program at Santa Rosa High, giving her the chance to expand her portfolio intensively. For a year, she took a weekly three-hour class with a local artist Charles Becker, eventually getting the opportunity to apprentice for him. At the junior college, she has taken figure drawing and etching. During the summer of her junior year, she took an intensive 2-week course in figure painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and eventually went on to Study at the San Francisco Art Intitute to get her Bachelor's in Fine Art. Aside from her major (painting), she has taken elective classes such as "drawing the anatomy", black and white photography, color photography, sculpture, etc.
Angie has been teaching children at S&G Art Studio in Rohnert Park for 8 years. She does specialty classes, open studio, and workshops for both children and adult. Since she is currently studying in Amsterdam during Spring '08, she will continue teaching when she returns.

About Her Work

Living In Bliss Angie Crabtree

For the past few years, my work has begun to explore the likeness of childhood fantasy. I owe my passion for living life to the artistic children whom I've been teaching for 8 years. They enjoy art for art's sake, art for expression, and art for fun; the kids are my heroes. Because they've heavily influenced me in their innocence and passion for creating, I similarly try to evoke a sense of euphoria and nostalgia in my audience. I intend to take each viewer beyond the spectrum of reality, into a far away place consisting of innocence and pure happiness. Through this, I use symbols that are recognized as being "joyful", "cute", or "silly" -- almost to the point of being cheesy. But, when recalling my own childhood, I know that dinosaurs, balloons and sailboats were among many of my favorite and heartwarming thoughts.
To evoke a feeling of fantasy, I provide environments in my paintings that are perhaps surreal or dream-like to that of a child, including bubble baths, roller coasters, clouds, etc. On large canvases, I paint bold, bright colors to evoke a sense of happiness that is undeniably descriptive of kids. My obsession with complimentary color combinations has gone so far as to haunt me in my dreams as well as my every day life. My main mediums have been interior house paint because it is heavy and vibrant, and acrylic because its plastic texture is similar to the look of toys. I have a strong appreciation for warm, bright child-like things that I feel become absent in adult-life, which is why I feel the need to reveal a sense of pure imagination that lies within me. Moreover, my work has been heavily influenced by existentialism, yet I try to provide an alternative to the historical notion that existentialists are unhappy or sad -- instead, I try to imply the complete opposite. To me, my paintings are more of a dream that I would like to achieve throughout my life -- I would like to remain warm, kind, positive, and naive, and I hope to evoke a similar feeling in those who come across my work. By taking full responsibility for my actions and life, I strive to be an optimist, as well as someone who is hardworking and goal-oriented. By expressing my passion for life, innocence, and euphoria, it provides me with a way of seeing the world more clearly -- of seeing only what I want to see. Although I feel that ignorance is bliss, I tend to live my life in something similar yet more realistic -- I create my reality, my life, my happiness, and my art.
Using bright house paint encourages me to be spontaneous and free-flowing; I usually finish my pieces in one or two sittings because I get so into it that I can't make myself stop. I get so focused, so passionate, and so in tune with what I want to be doing that my work comes out exactly how I envisioned it. Painting gives me an outlet to express my enthusiasm for color and sometimes comical subject matter -- I feel that it is an accentuating medium that aids me in making sense of life and its infinite possibilities. It reminds me of what is, so that I can let it be and make it mine.

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Thank you

I’d like to say thanks to everyone who has been supportive of my art, especially my parents who have guided me and helped me in every possible way...I love you!