"The future is unwritten." -Joe Strummer
Evoking a feeling of discomfort, wonder, horror, and/or intrigue. That is the goal I set forth in creating the images that illustrate a story in which can only exist in that one moment - the moment of tension and truth.
As a survivor of an abusive past, visual story telling became my outlet. Reflecting on my world, I envision an alternate reality – either doomed or filled with false hope, or even a cynical sense of beauty. The visions of characters that come into my mind are what I call to manifest in an image. I create the world in either digital or physical set form, and place my characters within, to give a glimpse of the horrors of control and helplessness of oppression, or a world far removed from it all.
Kristen Grundy (b.1981) is an American punk rocker, dark art creator, and fantasy / surrealism photographer whose works bravely call for us to look into where most may not want to: the essence of survival through the struggles that exists in the depths of our complex psyches, and personal stories.
Kristen's initial curiosity into art started through the imaginative poring of her father’s record covers, and then into her own collection of records. Her passion for photography developed in the mid 90’s by shooting street and documentary style photos and capturing punk shows on black and white film - which also influenced her as a musician. After years of working with film and darkroom printing, as well as playing music and touring, she later learned composite techniques and digital photography.
Entering into the realm of digital art allowed for a much deeper storytelling through elaborate character-and-set productions, giving Kristen an auteur-level quality of individual style and a personal stamp of uniqueness in each of her fantastic, visionary photos. The difficult themes that her work evokes are pulsing expressions stemming from her own long-term traumatic relationship abuse under an extreme abuser - from the struggles of entrapment, fear, isolation and oppression, to the dreams and glimmer of self-awareness, resilience, and recovery.