Meet Kirsten Van Mourick | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kirsten Van Mourick and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kirsten, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
When I earned my Masters in Fine Art in 2013, I walked the stage at a bulging 8 months pregnant with my first son. My graduate education proved to be invaluable to my next phase of balancing being both an artist and a mother. Before school and children, I worked when it pleased me, which frankly became less and less frequent. Through the press of education, I discovered that minutes are diamonds, and I took every available chunk I could find to squeeze into the studio. Whether I “felt” like it or not. Whether it was ten minutes or three hours. I learned not wait to work on my work until life gets less interesting, because those same things that intrude in on our process are the same that fuel inspiration! The loveliness, the pain (both the great and the mundane) and all of the crap (both literal and metaphorical), are as indispensable to creating as the hairs on the brush. It has been accurately said that one cannot edit a blank page.,.so I have ferreted out the time of day I can give to painting, and have protected it fiercely. This is one way I have been able to continue to produce, even through the “sweaty eye-balls” phase of parenting…just one handful of diamonds at a time.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Embedded in our swiftly marching hours, there are moments of worship, clarity, and beauty that refresh us. They remind us of who we are, and what our purpose is. They are our rest: a secure foothold on a steep and lengthy scramble, a softly lit inn along a dark and dangerous road. It’s a meal shared with friends, or the warmth of a steaming coffee alone at dawn. It’s a painting that comes alive in front of me, unaccountably, after hours of frustration. These moments buoy us for the journey and remind us that even here, heaven gently hems us in.
This is the purpose of these canvases…to snatch up the lovely, sacred moments of lives lived faithfully, and commit them to memory. As I work, I surround myself with these visual reminders of what rest and love and worship and hope look like. Since I was a child I have found inspiration in the beauty of people. I would study my mother’s perfect skin and her delicate oval nails, and my father’s kind brown eyes. There was something I wanted to extract, to release, before I knew what to name it. I sensed that the faces and skin that stretched over their bones emitted something luminous. That human flesh contained something incalculably valuable, because what it wrapped around was soul. Swaddled potential, glowing and desperate to escape through any thinning…eager to be known. These portraits show beings created with a purpose, participating in that purpose. They are icons to inspire faith, and celebrate the holiness in the mundane.
More recently, I have found the beauty in the natural world around me… plein-air painting has taught me to see something vast and challenged me to take a handful of it and make it a small moment. As my eyesight deteriorates with age, I find more joy in the big shapes and colors that landscape offers, and I love working petite, fast and loose, where for years of portraiture required strictness and size. But the work still points toward the same goal. I paint them for you, with the audacious hope that when you stand in front of them, you might find refreshment on a dusty road. I pray that they are massage for your weary feet; that they are hospitality and a warm meal. I want you to know that even in a world that is smoky with sorrow, God is good.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I naturally gravitate toward the ocean! I would take them to Doheny to surf, then of course Miyakos for sushi! Perhaps a walk in the Dana Point Harbor, and then whatever event they are cooking up at Agape in San Clemente.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
To the One who created me, and taught me to see.
To my family, who both encourage me and inspire me simultaneously. You are as vital to my painting as the brushes.

Website: https://vanmostudio.com

Instagram: @vanmostudio

Image Credits
Hugh Forte took my headshot