Raleigh Gardiner: Interview with Chrystal Hardt about her work and exhibition, “Going Deep” - 2019

     The spaces and environments created in your paintings give them a very dreamlike quality. Where do you get your ideas and how do you choose your subject matter?
     My paintings are inspired by the energy of the moment.  I go into a deep space and let the spirit move me. They are very much like waking dreams.  I paint to express those things that are beyond words.

     There is a very textural quality to some of your canvas pieces. What kinds of materials are you using?
     I have recently been really playing around with texture.  It adds a painterly quality that I find very attractive.  It also alters the painting process somewhat in that the fiber paste I am using is delicate unlike that modeling paste that I have used in that past.  It has a paper like delicacy that I find appealing.  It reminds me somewhat of the water color paper which is just so beautiful and inviting.

     Your work has very “active” compositions. The movements between the shapes and the relationships between colors give your paintings a playful, swirling-like motion. How do you start a piece, and how do you know when an artwork is finished?
     I have a lot of energy that expresses itself through the painting process.  I think of it as being similar to a piece of music.  The sound takes the listener on a journey and my colors and movement do the same for the viewer.  I am drawn to wholeness and I notice that a lot of my work comes full circle just as a musical composition returns to the starting place at the end of the piece.   

     How does experimentation play into your process?
     Every painting is an adventure in that I am allowing it to come through me much like giving birth.  Sometimes I have triplets!

     What is it like being an artist in North Carolina?
​     I love being surrounded by so much natural beauty and there are good things happening in the arts.  I hope to see more support for artists.  Some new venues are opening up in Orange County so there is hope.

     Where is your favorite place to find inspiration in Person County?
     I find inspiration everywhere.  I think I have internalized the countryside from my early life on the farms in Ceffo and City Lake.  What I paint, whether it is a landscape or a figurative work tends to be full of movement and energy like the land itself.  That push/pull is what makes it exciting to paint. 
     My paintings go beyond what I see into the realm of internal response.  What I paint has more to do with my reaction to the moment than it does to what is in front of me so my material is limitless. 
     I do have to let the field lie fallow, however.  You can’t go around creating without replenishing.  If you are going to be consistently creative you have to spend time recharging and that can look like doing nothing and sometimes it is!  The key is balance.

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