I am a multimedia artist based in Orlando, Florida. Having grown up in Tampa Bay, my favorite things to paint are Florida things like colorful skies and wildlife. Additionally, as a huge fan of women’s sports, I also enjoy painting exceptional women athletes. My style is a take on impressionism, applied with an emphasis on movement and energy, using modern techniques in bold and vivid colors. I focus on capturing light and color, while leaving space for my own unique and personal perspective and commentary on the human experience.
My early inspirations came from sports logos, skateboard graphics and magazines, 80s and 90s Disney cartoons, Nickelodeon and MTV. Later on I became a dedicated skateboarder and explored skateboard documentary filmmaking. During this time I completed an undergraduate degree in Digital Media that led me to a career as a creative designer and marketing strategist.
Perhaps nurtured as a way to balance out my capitalist exercise of commercial creativity, painting is my most pure form of authentic creative practice. Creating and feeling accomplished in my own art practice allows me to show up with creativity for my corporate career practice.
See their work on instagram: @KristyCannonKey
Website: Kristy Cannon Key
Behind the Piece
Cultship
” The idea for Cultship was created as a combination of the two words “Culture” and “Relationship”, and its intention is to describe an extension of the meaning of the word “friendship”, in that it goes beyond one-to-one friendship bonds and includes a collective bond that creates a culture and community relationship. Cultship was created to describe this specific type of communion, often associated with urban subcultures, for example: skateboarders, breakdancers and graffiti artists.
The imagery is a ship with a city on it sailing through rough waters. The city, represented by tall building-like shapes with windows cut out, is the culture. It floats on top of a solid black hull creating a city-ship or Cultship as it has been named.
The Cultship paintings are layered with acrylic colors and brush stroke textures. The bold use of solid black shapes to create the ship’s hull and buildings allows the form to express the presence of the vessel against a dynamic background of water and sky.
The paintings have a folk art quality combined with modern materials and vivid color pallets, viewers are delighted by the thought provoking symbolism alongside energetic and expressive take on subjects that include the challenges we experience as collective humanity. Politics, economic strain, health issues, working class pressure, etc. are things we ride out together as a Cultship.”