Kristine Bybee

Kristine Bybee depicts an esoteric beauty uncovered during her sojourns into the unknown. Her work conveys a sentient solitude by evoking the lyrical expanse of the landscape. Stretching forth, the velvet horizon remains just out of grasp, relating a feeling of truth found in the present. Her itinerant journeys from the California coast to the American Southwest and Europe have cultivated a sacred relationship to these environments.

Kristine Bybee studied under Wayne Theibaud and Fred Dalkey while attending UC Davis and Sacramento City College. She graduated with honors from Art Center College of Design. While pursuing a career in illustration and graphic design at The Sacramento Bee, she continued her ritual of carrying a sketchbook to record her world of landscapes. In 2000, she began teaching courses in design, color theory, and drawing at Consumnes River College. The Crocker Art Museum invited Bybee to become an art educator in 2012, where she leads creative workshops inspired by the special exhibitions on view. Bybee’s work has been exhibited in many regional and local galleries including The Pence Gallery in Davis, The Foundry Gallery, The Soloman Dubnick Gallery and the Park Fine Art Gallery.

Davis Enterprise Art Critic, Melissa Hiatt, describes Bybee’s work in Landscape: “Bybee’s work takes the viewer on tour of the world as seen through the eyes of a landscape artist. She references each piece with softness and light, but a clear fascination for form…The shear beauty of her work is unmistakable. The glowing light and softness of the renderings offer serenity, albeit a slightly complicated kind. The softness and perspective create captivating images and a breezy movement that are strangely real.”

Shirley Dubnick of The Solman Dubnick Gallery described a group of Pastel Landscapes on view in her gallery in 2005. “The landscapes of Kristine Bybee encompass the viewer into idyllic scenery.  Her pastel renderings depict sweeping vineyards, elegantly reflected waterfronts and gently dappled land. Her dusty mood and deft drawing present richness in color, the application of which is soft and painterly.”
 

"Bybee has an inherent preference for the Landscape genre. Truly an expression of American Art; these landscapes are articulated with contemporary meaning…The visual dynamic achieved in the presentation is both familiar and mood invoking. The scenes spawn from real and known places yet through materials and technique redefine into contemplative poems."

—Nancy Service,
former Executive Director
of the Pence Gallery, Davis