VISUAL ARTIST

CHRISTIANNA LOUISE WHITE FLETCHER

The Artist

Christianna Louise White Fletcher (b., 1982) is a professional artist living and working from her studio in Jacksonville, Florida.  A Jacksonville native, she spent her adolescent years in The Northern Neck of Virginia where her love of the arts was nurtured and supported, especially by her mother, who was also an artist. There, she attended the prestigious Governor’s School for Visual Arts and began painting murals.  Returning to Jacksonville to work for a professional theatre company, she began teaching theatre to at-risk youth in underserved communities, while performing in over 150 one-act plays and eventually serving as the theatre’s Educational Director. This experience led her to the film, television, and print world, where she starred in over 30 independent films and did commercial work.

Her first love being Visual Arts, she then transitioned from teaching theatre to focusing solely on teaching Visual Art. The next decade was spent teaching art and working as a museum professional at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville.  Congruently employed as a teaching artist for The Cathedral Arts Project, the Riverside Children’s Art Center, and Young Rembrandts, she taught in many community schools.  This included 7 years teaching art at PACE Center for Girls along with teaching at her previous elementary school, Cedar Hills Elementary. Teaching at her old elementary school, she was able to give the gift of art back to children from the community where she first experienced the transformative magic of art. 

Along with teaching, owning, and operating her own studio/gallery/store space, “Studio Apothecary” has been one of the highlights of her career where she enjoyed restoring a historical building and interacting with local artisans, artists and art patrons, hosting community classes, art shows and showcasing artisan products made and produced locally.

Considering herself retired from teaching and from the silver screen, Christianna is focused on balancing motherhood and her career as a professional Painter. The mother of two toddlers, Christianna paints into the night after her children have gone to sleep and posts her studio adventures, current commissions, and bodies of work on her Instagram stories.

Focused on a series of environmental related works, and authoring a book, Christianna is dedicated to expanding her daily art practice to an international audience.  Many of her artworks incorporate recycling single use plastics into works of art, to challenge the status quo of current mass-manufacturing systems on the over-use of single-use plastics in contemporary society. 

She has shown work at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, been commissioned by the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, as well as hosted a solo exhibition at the Main Jacksonville Library, where her work spanned the range of two floors. Most recently, showing work for Art Spectrum Art Fairs in conjunction with Art Basel for Miami’s Art week, her next exhibition will be at The Haegeumgang Theme Museum in Geoje, South Korea. She works on commission frequently. Christianna is grateful to be able to use art for self-expression and as a means of healing the collective consciousness.

Find her on Instagram @Christianna_Contemporary where she shares her explorations in the studio and her adventures in motherhood. 

Therapeutic paint nights, painting lessons and paint parties are available upon request.  She also performs live painting demonstrations for events and does live portraiture.  Inquiries to www.christiannacontemporary.com  or email art@christiannacontemporary.com

Artist Statement

My current body of work aims to connect the viewer with their inner child or to a time when they have interacted with nature, which is when the soul is at the utmost peace.  Inspired by footage of the Great Pacific Garbage Patches, I recycle everyday single-use plastics into much of my work which depicts the natural world. Partnering with several wildlife organizations and ocean clean-up organizations, I travel waterways by kayak and remove trash along shorelines which often gets incorporated into my art in order to raise awareness on the over-manufacturing and use of single use plastics and how they degrade our natural environment. My first work incorporating single use plastics is titled “PLASTIC: Beach” and has inspired a series of works which have become a body of work titled “Seeking Holy Ground.”   I believe in protecting our natural environment and in the transformative power of art.