Ever since she became besties with aqua and brown, circa age twelve, and moss, sand-dusted stones, and tarnished copper dominated with profound consequence, Wolheim’s impending life as a creative was consummated.
Driven by fire and adversity. Happily immersed in weights and measures of semolinas, meats, oils, and acrylics, the artist’s life ensued from the best kitchens to enigmatic ateliers. Chef, painter, designer, stylist, art director—learning by doing drives her acclaimed success. After her round life in kitchens, Wolheim continued her practice in painting and photography at the San Francisco Art Institute where she developed a distinctive style of collage as both a medium and painterly compositional strategy. In parallel, and inspired by the varied tradition of abstract expressionism and its reprisals, her intuitive relationship to color and mark-making played out in large abstract canvases.
For Christine, painting is energy. While the impetus may be the intensity of a colour seen or imagined, the reflection of a wet city street at night or the psychological play of a particular image or symbol, the work always derives from phenomenological experience. It’s not about translating an idea or image, but rather magnifying the energy of that experience whether through abstract or representational forms.
Working with multiple forms, Wolheim has developed a language that speaks through juxtapositions of colour, shape, movement, layering, erosion, image, and/or placement. Her palette, whether working purely abstractly or with selective images, ranges in rich, saturated, often incongruent hues to deceptively spare uses of black and white to privilege the raw canvas.
This notion itself is magnified in Wolheim’s approach to the canvas, particularly her abstract paintings: “There’s something about the verticals. It’s what my body does when it meets the canvas. The physicality of the paint is in direct relationship to how my body is interacting with the canvas and paint. The immersive scale and gesture is important for the maker and viewer.” Her abstract paintings emerge out of a collaborative effort and engagement between the artist and her materials, the desired impetus, and the limiting parameters she sets forth for the painting to realize “itself.”
Whereas her palpable gestures annunciate her physicality in her abstract paintings, they rather seamlessly paint the ground upon which the figure nests or abounds, drawing attention to their figure-ground relationship that is so slippery and essential in her image based, collage style compositions. There, and in her actual collages, pattern whether it is painted, collaged, or perceived within compositions, is an essential element in these works. They not only reference interior physical spaces, but internal, psychological spaces as well, eliciting Christine’s belief that our biography becomes our biology, on a cellular level, thus determining our behavior patterns.
Christine Wolheim is an artist who gets her inspiration from travel, flea markets, other makers, magazines, books, photos, trees, nature and water. She lives in San Francisco and has a log cabin in her hometown of Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe. She works per assignment as a Food and Prop Stylist for her day job. As an ex-chef, Christine still cooks for friends, drinks wine, makes runners and custom fragrances, and has a habit of re-doing orphan chairs. She loves to ride her Vintage Vespa, which reminds her of her years living in Italy.
To see her commercial work go to: www.wolheimstyle.com
Anti-Sexual violence piece
with Model Channy
for "We Step Into The Light" show
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 Captain OKO Design
Point Reyes, CA
2018 Lines and Gestures
Yonder
San Francisco, CA
2011 Balms for the Busy
Cowboys & Angels
San Francisco, CA
2006 Paving the Way
Di Pietro Todd
San Francisco, CA
2005 Helium
24seven @ 49 Geary
San Francisco, CA
2005 Fabricate
Ambitalia
Mill Valley, CA
2004 Wolheim
24seven @ 49 Geary
San Francisco, CA
2000 Heaven
Luna Rossa
San Francisco, CA
1997 Fotografie delle Marche
Il Particolare
Petritoli, Italy
1997 Recent Works
Wyatt Studio Gallery
San Francisco, CA
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 In Flux: Recalibrating the Unknown
MONCA: Museum of Northern California Art
Chico, CA
2017 TOGETHER
Heron Arts
San Francisco, CA
2011 We Step Into the Light
Create Social Change Exhibition
San Francisco, CA
Artists were paired with a survivor of sexual violence and invited to make a portrait of their subject as not merely a survivor but as one who thrives.
2008 Rock. Paper. Scissors
Untitled Gallery
Sausalito, CA
2006 Winter Show and Auction
Hotel Des Artes
San Francisco, CA
2003 Wolheim, Garcia, Del Rosario
Washington Square Gallery
San Francisco, CA
2002 Untitled
Limn Gallery Showroom
San Francisco, CA
2002 SF/LA
Basswerk Gallery
Los Angeles, CA
2001 The Arts Forum Inauguration Exhibition
Irvine Fine Arts Center
Irvine, CA
2001 Five New Artists
Kweejibo Gallery
San Francisco, CA
2000 In the Beginning
Mission Cultural Center
San Francisco, CA
2000 Women's Work Jubilee
Venue 9
San Francisco, CA
1999 Endo/Exo
The Music Annex
Menlo Park, CA
1999 The New Book of Etiquette
Diego Rivera Gallery
San Francisco, CA
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Vanesssa Silva, San Francisco, CA
Carla Bourque, Woodacre, CA
Joe Kyle Jr, San Francisco, CA
Vx Capital Partners, San Francisco, CA
Younossi Law Offices, San Francisco, CA
Lupe Restaurant, San Francisco, CA
Ty Hunter, San Quentin, CA
Thomas Roedoc, Sausalito, CA
Anthony Grant, New York, NY
Frances Bowes, San Francisco, CA
Jessica Ress, Sausalito, CA
Major Mugrage, San Francisco, CA
Former Mayor Willie Brown, San Francisco, CA
Merlin Coleman, Berkeley, CA
Amanda Rieux, Kamuela, Hawaii
Agnes Kersten, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Donna and Ian Fitzpatrick, Greenbrae, CA
Davy Crockett & Mara Meisner, Mill Valley, CA
Ilya Yukhtman, New York, NY
Elaine Kim, San Francisco, CA
Adam Bard & Renee Beard, Boston, MA
Nancy Colville, Los Angeles, CA
Lourens Crous & Arturo Cosenza, San Francisco, CA
Katie Christ, Sonoma, CA
Tracey Fischer, Joshua Tree, CA
RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2022–present Art Workshops. 3 hour and multi-day workshops guiding particIpants through the process of abstraction, collage, Indigo dyeing, figure gesture drawing, etc.
2020–present Youth Mentor in Art: Learning to Trust One’s voice, Authentic mark making. Creative excursions and lessons in studio: instructing on a wide range of materials
2018 Ombre Wall Treatment Design and Video
Sunset Magazine Home Style
2008 Cover Art for Anti-Poetry Magazine
August edition
2006 Commissioned Paintings, Paul Wallace
Interior Design
San Francisco, CA
2006 Compact Disc Artwork and Cover Design for Merlin Coleman
Berkeley, CA
2004 Business Card/Artwork/Brochure Design
Interior Alchemy
San Francisco, CA
2003 Guest Lecturer at San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco, CA
2000 - 2004 Founder, co-curator and host
Woolsey St. Downstairs Gallery & Cold Cuts Sessions
(an ongoing monthly salon)
Berkeley, CA
2002 Commissioned Painting, Insalata's Restaurant
San Anselmo, CA
2002 Compact Disc Photography, Artwork and Cover Design for Peoples Bizarre
San Francisco, CA
1997 Art History Tutor, San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco, CA
EDUCATION
1997- 2001 B.F.A. San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco, CA
GRANTS, AWARDS and AFFILIATIONS
1999 Honor Studio Recipient
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco, CA
1998 and 1999 Ivan Majdrakoff Painting Merit Award
San Francisco, CA