ABOUT KRISTA SVALBONAS

Krista Svalbonas’s artwork depicts the processing of distant spaces. Cut photographs taken in the cities she, or her parents, have called home are placed along the edges of each other. In her collages, rural buildings traverse the edges of glass wall skyscrapers and early modern high rises. These convergences recollect how one remembers and makes distinctions about their homes.

As a child of refugees, place and dislocation have often interested Svalbonas, processing this idea of home being in flux or temporary. Photos are the only possessions they were able to take with them while fleeing Russian occupation in Latvia and Lithuania, the only visual she had to accompany the stories of a lost homeland from her parents. Having lived in New York, Chicago, and rural Pennsylvania, her own personal history of movement mixes with her family history.

Svalbonas received her MFA from SUNY New Paltz in Photography, Sculpture, and Design and her BFA from Syracuse University in Photography and Design. She has had solo shows at Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, Spartanburg Museum of Art, and Matteawan Gallery. Selected group exhibitions include Zhou B Art Center, Matthew Rachman Gallery, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and Cooper Union. She lives and works in Philadelphia where she is an assistant professor of photography at St. Joseph’s University.