Biography
Christine Shanks was born in 1977 and raised in rural Harford County Maryland. She works in many mediums in addition to photography and design. She earned her BS in Visual Communications at Towson University, graduating in 2000. During her undergraduate program she concentrated on photography, utilizing alternative and black and white processes. After earning her BS, she spent a year in the MFA photography program at the Savannah College of Art and Design, studying color and professional studio photography. In order to better continue her artistic pursuits she transferred to the masters program at the University of Delaware, where she earned an MFA in photography in 2004.
Christine Shanks’ early bodies of work revolved around studio portraiture and still life. During her graduate program at the University of Delaware, she began creating work that dealt with the Human Condition. She created three bodies of work that explored complex emotions through various imagery and mediums. The first of these bodies of work was autobiographical digital photographs that were inspired by her love of portraiture, as well as her need to document a transitional and emotionally charged period in her life.
The second digital series was shot using an SLR digital camera with high quality lenses which enabled her to explore images that dealt her connection to the past rather than the present and her journey to accept the change. The resulting images were printed large and echoed her background in painting. Images from the “Driving Through” series have been awarded “Best of Show” from the Sewell C. Biggs Museum of American Art, been published in Camera Arts Magazine and been shown throughout the United States.
The third body of work was mixed media pieces that combined her love of photography, digital and alternative processes, ceramics, painting and drawing. She utilized her diverse art background to create digital collages with a digital camera and scanner and then applied them to ceramics by using the alternative process of Lazertran transfer. Her 3D ceramics work has been included in a lecture at the Southern Graphic Conference entitled “3D: Diversity, Discourse, Dimension” and has also been published in the book “Image Transfer on Clay” by Paul A. Wandless.
Upon earning her MFA she was hired as a professor in the Graphic Design and Photography departments at the Art Institute of Philadelphia and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online. She currently resides in Chester County Pennsylvania. Her work can also be seen at Gallery Merid in Stuttgart Germany as well as on several online exhibitions and collaboration projects.