Christa studied in the New York Studio Program in Manhattan, where she worked as an assistant to sculptor Jeanne Silverthorne, studied with critics and artists, gained further perspective into the creepy world of modeling, developed some health problems, and began a new body of work based on her personal experiences. She returned to Cleveland to get her BFA in Drawing in 1998, and won the Wendy L. Moore Emerging Artist Award from the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland in 1999. Christa Donner uses large-scale drawings and small-press artist's books to explore issues of women's health and body image, and her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums including the New York Studio Program, Kravets-Wehby Gallery and Longwood Arts Project in New York; POST Gallery in Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, the Sculpture Center, and the Idea Garage in Cleveland; Pound Gallery and Consolidated Works in Seattle, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh; and the Centro Columbo Americano in Medellin, Colombia. Whenever she can, Christa accompanies her art with workshops focusing on body image, art and activism, and has led workshops and classes for Planned Parenthood, the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Institute of Art, Ladyfest East NY, the Bumbershoot festival, and numerous other organizations and institutions. In January of 2000, Christa helped organize and lead a conference on expanded ideas of body image and its relationship to the media at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. She's spoken on panels including the AIDA conference on Arts and Activism, coordinated by the Greater Cleveland Roundtable, and "Beauty Bytes: Creating and Critiquing the Image of Girl Power" with editors of "Hues", "Bust" and "Ms." magazines. Now based in Chicago, Christa harbors a healthy obsession for independent comics and small-press zines, which she writes about for Friction, Dialogue, and Punk Planet magazines. She regularly presents workshops on self-publishing and tours the country with her zine projects, Ladyfriend and Free Advice. In 2003, she curated the exhibition Page Me: the art of zines, comix and other artist-made books for SPACES Gallery with the Wexner Center's Christopher Conti. She continues to make lots of visual art and zines in her Chicago studio, and doesn't plan to stop anytime soon. For updates on the artist's latest projects, click here, or e-mail to be added to her mailing list. |
Christa Donner was born in 1975 in Morristown, NJ. Her father, an oboe player with a doctorate in physics and her mother, a professional flautist and talented accordionist, soon decided to relocate to the bustling metropolis that is Fort Wayne, IN, where Christa spent most of her formative years. After a brief introduction to the world of modeling via Sassy magazine after high school, Christa started Sissy, a self-published zine based on that now-defunct publication, and developed various techniques to disseminate information on body image and the media to teenage girls. Christa then relocated to Memphis, TN to attend the Memphis College of Art and to broaden her appreciation for Elvis impersonators. A year or so later, she transferred to the Cleveland Institute of Art. |
Christa Donner |
Christa studied in the New York Studio Program in Manhattan, where she worked as an assistant to sculptor Jeanne Silverthorne, studied with critics and artists, gained further perspective into the creepy world of modeling, developed some health problems, and began a new body of work based on her personal experiences. She returned to Cleveland to get her BFA in Drawing in 1998, and won the Wendy L. Moore Emerging Artist Award from the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland in 1999. Christa Donner uses large-scale drawings and small-press artist's books to explore issues of women's health and body image, and her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums including the New York Studio Program, Kravets-Wehby Gallery and Longwood Arts Project in New York; POST Gallery in Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, the Sculpture Center, and the Idea Garage in Cleveland; Pound Gallery and Consolidated Works in Seattle, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh; and the Centro Columbo Americano in Medellin, Colombia. Whenever she can, Christa accompanies her art with workshops focusing on body image, art and activism, and has led workshops and classes for Planned Parenthood, the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Institute of Art, Ladyfest East NY, the Bumbershoot festival, and numerous other organizations and institutions. In January of 2000, Christa helped organize and lead a conference on expanded ideas of body image and its relationship to the media at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. She's spoken on panels including the AIDA conference on Arts and Activism, coordinated by the Greater Cleveland Roundtable, and "Beauty Bytes: Creating and Critiquing the Image of Girl Power" with editors of "Hues", "Bust" and "Ms." magazines. Now based in Chicago, Christa harbors a healthy obsession for independent comics and small-press zines, which she writes about for Friction, Dialogue, and Punk Planet magazines. She regularly presents workshops on self-publishing and tours the country with her zine projects, Ladyfriend and Free Advice. In 2003, she curated the exhibition Page Me: the art of zines, comix and other artist-made books for SPACES Gallery with the Wexner Center's Christopher Conti. She continues to make lots of visual art and zines in her Chicago studio, and doesn't plan to stop anytime soon. For updates on the artist's latest projects, click here, or e-mail to be added to her mailing list. |
"Whaaa?" Christa in her studio, circa 2002. |
