Originally from Illinois, Kristy Winterbourne’s education and professional background is in jewelry and metalwork. She received a BFA in jewelry and metalwork, as well as a minor in art history - any time not spent in her own metals studio was in the ceramics department. After working as a professional jeweler for several years in Chicagoland, she relocated to Arizona to work for a custom jewelry designer and artist. During this time, Kristy’s love for working in clay never subsided, taking sporadic throwing classes at the local clay collective scratched a persistent itch. After pausing her career as a goldsmith and stonesetter to start a family, she decided to enroll in a figurative sculpture class. Kristy soon realized that the desire to sculpt, which had been put aside up until this point, was an achievable reality. Through a combination of refined training and attention to detail, along with the malleable aspect of clay, she is able to capture minute detail and expression throughout her work.

As an emerging artist in the figurative sculpture world, Kristy has found joy, satisfaction, and challenging rewards in her developing skills and craft. Her current subject matter has direct influences from ancient art history, folklore, mythology of past and present civilizations, as well as current social norms. Art has had direct influence in creating narratives to express order, govern civilizations, control the masses, define mores, mark historical moments, and subdue discourse. Perhaps the examples that were made had more than surface value, perhaps the subject’s hidden workings have their own story to tell, not what was told about them. Kristy seeks to inspire broader thought while bringing to the surface a view of the undisclosed sense of self. Through gestures and expressions, as well as imagery from the natural world, she explores how narratives are portrayed. It is up to the viewer to come to their own illuminations, to move beyond misconceptions of identity, beliefs, internal dialogues and all of the resulting impacts. It is the artist’s goal to convey a different and deeper interpretation of what is unseen and that which we hold to be truths.