Info

gallery director / owner / artist

I am inspired most often by the seemingly endless patterns and abstractions found in the natural world.  My art ranges from representational and somewhat traditional to totally abstract.  I enjoy experimenting with a variety of media.

Trees, weeds, feathers, animal tracks, and bones are some of the subjects frequently found in my work on which I project emotion, explore various concepts, or simply make aesthetic statements.

Symbolism is present in many of my pieces, such as the use of geometric tire tread designs to represent urbanization or raptor feathers to suggest the essence of everything untamed, including the human spirit.  Occasionally I will use color in a symbolic way, such as red to symbolize both life and pain.

I find myself repeatedly using aspen trees as a metaphor for human relationships.  Each aspen tree seems totally individual, with bark that is uniquely marked indicating the story of its life.  However, all aspen in a stand are connected by a common root system, intertwined and inseparable.  It is this underlying “connection” that most interests me.

Recently, I have been creating raised painted rice paper “sculptures” on canvas, based on organic shapes somewhat resembling those of aspen, but fairly abstract.  The pieces are back-lit with LED lights, creating essentially 2 different pieces of art in one.  The light represents a sort-of “shared consciousness” of humanity or those human connections that transcend time and space.

- Kris Lee

 

 

History

wildside studio - Historic frisco building

 

WildSide Studio is located in a local historic landmark in Frisco, the “Staley House.”  The studio/gallery occupies a two-story restored log house on Main Street, built in 1892.  It notable because of the combination of vertical and horizontal log beams used in the construction of the home, rarely found west of the Mississippi.  The building has never been moved and has the original tin ceilings upstairs and down.