INTO THE MYSTIC 

Artist Christine Richman revels in the energy of the inexplicable.

Growing up in Arlington Heights, artist Christine Richman was the “odd bird” in a house of four kids. “My mom loves to tell the story of finding me at age 3, surrounded by ‘textures’ I’d collected from around the house—carpet scraps, curtain tassels, bits of my hair, even the cat’s fur. I’ve never known a time when I wasn’t making something.”

That penchant was no passing phase. Richman went on to earn a BFA in Painting from Indiana University, where she spent three mornings a week drawing a figure for hours at a time. “Those sessions felt like meditation, rare stillness for someone who’s never been naturally still,” she recalls. “But while I valued the discipline of life drawing, I often wanted to push beyond realism, pulling narratives from imagination and instinct. At the time, I was hesitant to go abstract—that came later, in my 40s, when I began embracing layered materiality and letting my process feel more cyclical, intuitive, and, at times, a little feral.”

After graduating, Richman took a job at a newly launched ad agency, Element79. The idea was to work for a year or two before pursuing another degree. “Within a year, I became an art director, traveling the world for TV ad shoots and collaborating with writers to solve creative problems,” relates Richman. “I worked there until I had my first son, then freelanced for many Chicago agencies on brands like PepsiCo, Gatorade, Aquafina, Quaker Oats, and Skinnygirl Cocktails. It was a period of fast thinking, high energy, and learning how to bring a vision from concept to reality.”

After 15 creative years in the business world, Richman returned to the studio and encountered the personal challenges that come with facing a canvas, rather than the demands of building a brand. “When I returned to the studio, I had to unlearn the urge to think like a client-pleaser and remember how to create for myself,” she says. “Once I shook off that mindset, my work became more personal, rooted in the hidden threads and unruly poetics I’ve always been drawn to.”

In her college days, Richman spent a year studying in Florence, Italy, a period she describes as transformative. “Standing before a Caravaggio and feeling the pull of his chiaroscuro was electrifying. It confirmed what I now understand as a core truth in my work: light and shadow are not just compositional tools, they are metaphors for perception, transformation, and the thresholds we move through—the seen and unseen.”

Some of Richman’s most compelling pieces are images that combine abstraction and the figure, works that intimate a sense of narrative yet stand powerfully as purely visual experiences. “My sketchbooks have long been filled with abstractions of space, of energy, of thought. One day, looking at a life drawing I wasn’t satisfied with, I realized I wanted more than anatomy. I wanted to reveal the vibrance, resilience, and mystery of the female form, to let it read as pure form and energy, a parallel to the natural world. It was the first real collision of my abstract impulses with my traditional training, and it opened a whole new visual language for me.”

Color—bright, forceful color—plays a key role in her work, as well. “I’m drawn to bold, unapologetic color,” says the artist, who cites the “fearless palette” of German artist Tina Berning and the “visionary spirit” of the once obscure, now celebrated Swedish artist and mystic Hilma af Klint as inspirations. “Standing before Klint’s The Ten Largest at the Guggenheim Museum was like being hit by a wave of joy and clarity—pure color, pure vision.”

Represented by UNREPD in Los Angeles and Cloth & Kind Gallery in Athens, Georgia (where she’ll be debuting a collection of painted lamp shades), Richman lives with her husband and two sons in Wilmette. “In 2019, we moved from Bucktown, where I thought I’d live forever, and I’ve never been happier. One of the best parts of moving here was finding our house, a 1920s gem that feels like it was built by wonderfully eccentric people. It’s bold, quirky, and a little bit locked in time. My favorite part is the coach house above the garage. That’s my studio, the space that coaxed me back into painting and sculpting after years away. Every day I walk out there, surrounded by light and history, and it feels like I’m stepping into a world entirely my own.”

For more information, visit christinerichman.com or follow @christinerichman.