Artist Focus

Artist Focus: Krisztina Lazar

Krisztina Lazar paints images of “Pop Shamanism” in the Mische Technique. The Mische Technique is a layering of white egg tempera and oil glazes to build an image out of highlight rather than shadow. The technique creates a beautiful luminescence that glows from within the image and complex optical grays that add an otherworldly element to each piece.

Green Tara, Mische Technique on canvas, 40 x 30"

“I am opened to something new within the process as well as within myself each time I use this technique which is why I keep coming back to it over and over again,” says Lazar. “Pop Shamanism” is a term Lazar has coined to describe her ongoing body of work. Her subject matter is both personally and culturally relevant, and taps into mythological and ancient themes, images from our collective unconscious just beyond the borders of the real. “I often receive an image for a painting like a bolt of lightning appearing all at once,” she says. “I then work with that image during the most creative time in between waking and sleeping before I actually go to the canvas and begin painting. This fleshes out a painting for me and is my way of sketching.”