DON CHRISTENSEN
dxtensen@earthlink.net

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BIO:
After attending Kansas City Art Institute on a full scholarship for two years I came to New York City where my older brother was experiencing a very successful art career. Through my brother's connections, I was soon working as a studio assistant for several artists who were popular and successful modernist painters. Though I loved abstraction and was impressed with the milieu, I was drawn to the emerging music scene that was happening in downtown Manhattan.

The "No Wave" scene of the late 70's and early 80's in New York provided me with the energetic and uninhibited artistic activity that I wanted. There were numerous venues for performing and several interesting musicians and people to collaborate with. I became involved with some very creative musicians and started performing and recording. Some of the ensembles and people that I worked with were: the Contortions, the Brian Eno, Henry Flynt, James White and the Blacks, the Raybeats, and Philip Glass. In the late 1980's I started scoring animated films and wrote music and sound design for 15 Faith Hubley films until her death in 2001. Some of these films are in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection.

In 1986 I went to visit a recluse farmer in the Sandhills of Nebraska. This gave me the opportunity to become acquainted with and eventually rescue the lifework of one of America's most important outsider artists, Emery Blagdon. Blagdon, a man with an 8th grade education, was a poor farmer who quit farming at the age of 47 and devoted the rest of his life (nearly 20 years) to the making of hundreds of beautiful, mysterious objects that he called Healing Machines. His courage and commitment has been a major inspiration.

In 1990, after finishing a film score, I took some time off and began meditating. This led to the creation of several small abstract paintings on selected pieces of wood that I had been collecting for years. Stimulated and energized by this painting activity I returned to New York and began painting full time. In 1992 I received a NEA Fellowship in painting and that same year had my first solo exhibition in New York. I was awarded a NYFA Fellowship for painting in 1996 and have had numerous group exhibitions and other solo shows in the ensuing years.

STATEMENT:
The composition, color, and drawing that are integral to my artworks are usually a representation of something I've seen in our world or in my dreams. It could be something quite simple, like the color of a pedestrian's coat superimposed on the large gaudy commercial graphics on the side of a truck as it turns into the late afternoon light. It could be the color scheme of a Matisse painting or the packaging of some candy. Nothing is sacred and nothing is too prosaic. Whether using found materials or painting directly onto canvas I am firmly in the tradition of pictorial art. The rectangle on the wall is an ancient traditional device and it still works. It is television, movies, photographs and painting. I am in this tradition. The context of my work is the present day popular culture married to the age-old tradition of picture making.

That being said, what is really going on is this - I like to make things and I like to make music. I think I have some talent at both and I have been fortunate and resourceful enough to create the time and resources to be able to do it.

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