I'm Christina Westrope, my paintings mainly consist of feminine portraits with a focus on the emotional experience. It's me trying to understand myself and the world. If I can really know something and really know it in line and recreate it, I might be able to understand and interact with life. I feel I am the artist I am because of the way I see things; I'm someone who likes to dig deeper, see things below the surface, and who has some complicated feelings about society. Therefore, my style is an extension of that. I think the work can be pretty self referential because I am what I know, but also the human experience is shared, and I've learned that if I relate to it, someone else does as well. I am pretty reclusive one could say a hermit so my work is mainly done in the studio. It often starts as a written phrase in a journal, and then I come up with a concept or feeling I'd like to portray. Then I'll take my own reference photos, usually of myself because I am alone most of the time. But occasionally a friend or family member will pose for me. Then I work from that reference, layering oil paint with transparent layers to create a sense of the person or figure with whatever feeling I am trying to push or navigate. I hope people take away honesty from my work, not my truth or my ideas. But I hope people see the work and feel something honest.