Cris Fulton

Artist Statement

My nature photographs and landscape drawings are my way of capturing and expressing the beauty and power of the northern Great Plains landscape, where I am fortunate enough to live. I have been influenced by Native American philosophy, the artwork of Wolf Kahn and Georgia O'Keeffe, the photography of Courtney Milne, and the writings of Willa Cather, Wallace Stegner, Sharon Butala, and Merrill Gilfillan.

I use Velvia slide film to capture the rich color and detail of the prairie country I have come to know and love. Most of my photographs are shot from a tripod with the camera set manually, so that the shutter speed and aperture are appropriate for the kind of image I want. My drawings are based on my photographs, and I have been using soft pastels on Stonehenge paper. I like the tremendous range of color and texture available in pastels, and the way I can draw the sky and land in bold, direct strokes that convey my energy and emotions. Recently I have begun experimenting with oil sticks on canvas panels. I wish to make larger drawings similar to my pastels, without the need for glass, and to create diptychs and triptychs that will more powerfully represent the immense scale of landscape here in southwestern North Dakota.

The land of my birth seems like a magical place; with its big fields, magnificent skies, massive buttes, spectacular Badlands, winding muddy rivers, rolling hills, scoria roads, prairie grasses, sagebrush, and flowers, cottonwoods, junipers, buffalo, deer, coyotes, antelope, horses, and hawks. There is still a sense of wildness and mystery pervading this sparsely populated frontier-like region of America. My work is an attempt to create something from the great joy I feel when I'm out in this vast, wonderful place.