Cristy Corso

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

As a contemporary interdisciplinary artist, and for over twenty years, lately my visual storytelling has been more about discovery, process, the dialog, and the interactivity of the viewer. Today, my preliminaries, prior to any execution of the work, I’ve used digital design to appropriation components. If its final is a digital art, painting or mural, interactive light to tech 3D design, crafted and fabricated into an installation or build—I find today all falling through the same organic purism funnel of art, culture, and purpose as historically known.

Some of my work intertwines the saturation of American popular culture, its media, advertising, and technology advancements growing up in the 1980s and 90s, why later living and working in city hubs for it. My work however, even if seemingly optimistically vibrant, has undertones  from: political, civil, and social issues we face today or in contrasting concerns of our history.

My work has included the celebration of gender and race as much as injustice, often in literal displays, and rests against my own personal expressions as a woman. My own Cherokee Native American (of Keetoowah band) heritage, cultural have risen in my work. This has included many eccentric, mythical, to theatrics traits from my Venetian Northern Italian roots.

Today, as a grateful survivor of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) where I was once left in a hospital for almost two years, I continue my first love of creating paintings to tell stories of many most affected and in the public eye—our military to American athletes. This helps me and others bring awareness why also support others, including our youth, who are struggling with mental health concerns.

Cristy Corso is an interdisciplinary artist who has received over a dozen awards and recognition, several distinguished gallery groups to solo shows throughout the U.S., has been a juror to curator of many events, museums, and exhibitions while remaining a well collected artist for over twenty years. Cristy, by her early teens, was accepted into intensive and private study programs at schools such the Art Institute of Chicago to Parsons School of Design in NYC. Before the age of twenty, she was invited to study figurative realism and oil painting under many world-class artists.  One includes the world-renowned painter and sculpture duo, also responsible for the iconic bronze Michael Jordan sculpture at the United Center Chicago, Julie Rotblatt, and Omri Amrany. This later helped pave the way to collaborations with many well-known artists along with her use of own multidisciplinary series, large-scale event production, using her own designs, producing commercial and public art murals and fabrications. 

Today, Cristy often uses her efforts, first love of painting, and even digital art compositions to bring awareness to TBI (traumatic brain injury) and mental health issues in America. This can be seen telling the visual stories of those most affected—our youth, to many well known athletes, as well as our military.  This was after a car accident, over a decade ago, leaving her in a hospital for almost two years.

Past Artists on the Lam show: LEXICON (2016)

10th Anniversary Message:

I was impressed with Jenny Lam’s curatorial creativity and often interactive nature when first attending her well received I CAN DO THAT exhibition in Chicago. We as guests were able to experiment with provocative work and even photocopying our butts in tents—this was later recognized by NewCity publication honoring her efforts as “best art show” of the year. Later, I was excited to be a fellow feature artist and participate with Jenny Lam’s interactive work “Hope for the City” project—where attendees put their hopes and dreams in helium balloons and were let go during Chicago Artists Month with the help of the Art Depth organization. The overall theme of the exhibition was entitled “The Year of the Black Water Dragon” reflective of the Chinese zodiac. I remember Jenny’s educational and fun social media shares expressing her pride as a Chinese American. Prior we went to a fashion show together and I had her pull a card of images from a deck of mine. It was a kite. I figured I might get some good luck if I gave her one of the tons of paper Chinese dragon kites I hoarded out of mere fascination with this mythical creature. She said it’s still in one piece today. I can’t say the same for mine.

This painting of Abe Lincoln, America’s sixteenth president during the Civil War from 1861 until his assassination in 1865, with its oversized scale I hoped to bring more conversation to him seen as the most aggressive political voice of constitutional rights and during the worst political crises within our country today. Although at times debatable, his abolishment of slavery, bolstering of the federal government, and restoring the Union of the North, while modernizing the U.S. economy, has been well recognized as much as the nine-foot canvas. Lincoln’s assassination was from a gunshot to the back of the head covered by the inserted apple.

Growing up near Chicago, I would visit the Art Institute of Chicago’s museum regularly. I attended an exhibition of the French surrealist painter, Rene Magritte. I saw his most recognized work, his iconic painting entitled Son of Man, 1946. This self-portrait of the artist, with the same apple covering his face, mesmerized me. The contrasting comparison of the men’s distinct garments from different suits, hats, time periods to parts of the world  (i.e. an American top hat vs. French chapeau) I’ve used in expressing the stories of my own myth characters in many past works. Magritte believed that “Everything we see hides another thing.” He continues, “We always want to see what is hidden by what we see.” This brought conflicting thoughts to many scholars and critics then. I then began to see how Magritte’s philosophy and work could mirror some of the conflicts we faced during the severity of uncertainty when seeking facts and truth within a deadly global COVID-19 paramedic.