KURT CHRISTIANSEN, PsyD
I was born in Ontario, Canada. I moved around a lot during my childhood, living in England, Canada, and then New Jersey for about 15 years. Since I can remember, I always had a flair for the creative arts, making art to decorate the walls (and ceiling sometimes) in my room then tearing it all down and creating something new the next year. Four years of high school art classes didn't teach me a thing other than my high school sucked and the arts are underfunded in schools. I moved toward other creative endeavors in college - acting, directing, writing, filmmaking, and radio production. I moved to California in the mid 1990's, met my beautiful wife and welcomed a wonderful step-daughter into my new family. I didn't come back to painting until my late 30s when I had a number of profound spiritual experiences and began my career as a psychologist. After listening to others express themselves all day, painting became a very soothing and soulful way to express myself. Since I didn't get any real lessons in high school, I would say I'm self-taught. My work is most influenced by my interest in Integral Theory, Spiral Dynamics, Metamodernism, Internal Family Systems, Complexity Science, and Spiritual Psychology.
Holons
(Acrylic on Canvas, 24" x 30")
Complexity Art reflects the human developmental journey to bring the soul’s energy of love and compassion to all the different parts of our inner and outer world. I depict themes of how the intrapersonal and interpersonal connect with the social, cultural, and spiritual in a beautiful yet messy developmental dance toward greater individual and collective truth, beauty, and goodness.
I call this painting, HOLONS
A holon is something that is both a whole and, at the same time, a part of a larger whole.
Through the eyes of SELF, steep in the curiosity of another – the holonic depths, the wonder of the complexity of being, the struggle and seeking to connect and be different.
You and I are two parts connected by a larger field of energy. A holon - with a consciousness that is more than the sum of its parts, seeking to know itself in physical form – to be embodied – through me, through you, through us.