Platica Y Poetics S4E11 Kristina Salinas

My Plática y Poetics conversation with multidisciplinary artist and photographer Kristina

Salinas felt less like a sit down and more like walking into Blue Star Contemporary in the trendy

King William on a random day like randomly moving from canvas to canvas of process, detail,

color as language, community, and curation. Pausing intentionally, zooming closer into what

makes art and the process so unique. Rather than approaching critique of the work, we delved

deeper into the who behind the art. Kristina shared candidly about her creative practice, and the

many ways she experiences art through detail, color, place, energy, memory, and connection. We

talked about what happens before a piece becomes a finished work, the trance feeling of being in

the creative zone, and most important the visual language, sometimes-unspoken feeling that

guides an artist toward what the intention, soul of a painting. As a multidisciplinary artist,

Kristina moves fluidly between photography, painting, and other creative dimensions of her

practice. She shared what becomes possible when an artist refuses to be confined to a single

medium, and how different forms can reveal different parts of an artistic vision. We lingered on

the detail, like admiring a lover of texture, color, objects, and visual moments that can suddenly

shift a moment and vision. Color, a language we both speak, was the neutral intoxicating essence

in the room. It is what arrives emotionally and instinctively, the metaphorical canvas. There is

power when the voice of cultura, heritage come beckoning into the creative realm, and Kristina

listens to both transient voices, gifting them a permanent home, en ambos lados, in both spiritual

and metaphorical spaces. Ushering and reclaiming her space across borders and identity.