The Joy of Experimenting⁠ | Kristen Guest

There is something unmistakably emotional about a painting by Kristen Guest. Before noticing the composition, the layering, or even the subject itself, you feel the atmosphere. Her work carries warmth, movement, and optimism; paintings that seem to radiate light rather than simply depict it.

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Color As Emotion

Bold yet balanced, expressive yet airy, her paintings create space to breathe. Through vibrant palettes, softened forms, and layered textures, she transforms everyday impressions into immersive emotional experiences.

At the center of her practice is color; not simply as decoration, but as storytelling.

“I’m a big-time color lover,” Kristen explains. “I think being a generally optimistic person affects my color choices, too.”

Kristen's Works Exists Between Mediums

Her paintings often begin with bold shapes and equally bold hues, but what makes her work so compelling is the restraint woven into that energy. Softer supporting tones are layered throughout the composition, amplifying the brighter colors rather than competing with them. There is a deep understanding of color theory beneath the spontaneity, creating paintings that feel both playful and intentional.

Guest often works with acrylics in an unusually fluid way, layering sheer washes similarly to watercolor techniques. She references artists like Mark Rothko for their emotional use of color and Wayne Thiebaud for the way traces of previous layers remain visible along edges and forms. These influences appear subtly throughout her work; not through imitation, but through a shared understanding that color itself can shape emotion.

That emotional clarity has remained remarkably consistent throughout her artistic evolution.

Like An Exhale

“The color blue,” she says immediately when reflecting on what has endured in her work over the years. “And my desire to make art that either is refreshing like an exhale or that brings a smile to your face and feels like standing in front of the sun.”

That combination of calm and joy continues to define her paintings today.

A Life Built Around Art

Yet while certain emotional threads remain constant, her process itself is deeply experimental. Guest has spent years moving across disciplines; ceramics, printmaking, book arts, letterpress, and design, all of which continue to influence how she approaches painting. Rather than treating mediums traditionally, she enjoys pushing them into unfamiliar territory: acrylics made to resemble or watercolor, oil and wax layered to mimic monoprints.

This curiosity has allowed her work to evolve naturally between realism and abstraction. Though she transitioned toward abstract painting in 2018, traces of observation and atmosphere still anchor her compositions. Her paintings rarely feel entirely representational or entirely abstract. Instead, they exist somewhere in between; a space guided more by feeling than literal depiction.

That emotional translation begins long before the first brushstroke.

Translating Atmosphere

For Guest, inspiration often comes from observing how a place feels rather than how it looks. The warmth of sunlight against neutral architecture, the rhythm of water, shifting shadows, or the texture of air itself become the foundation for a painting. Rather than copying a scene directly, she filters it through memory and emotion.

“A lot of my paintings begin this way first,” she explains. “Observing how a place feels.”

This sensitivity to atmosphere is perhaps why her work resonates so strongly within interiors. Her paintings do not overwhelm a room; they transform its energy quietly. Through spacious compositions and carefully edited palettes, they introduce a sense of openness and calm that feels increasingly valuable in modern homes.

Creating Space to Breath

Guest describes this intentional simplicity as an ongoing process of refinement. She is constantly asking herself what can be removed rather than added. The breathing room within her work; the negative space, softened edges, and restrained compositions, is entirely deliberate.

“Few, but well done,” she says.

Even her approach to color mixing reflects this philosophy. Rather than discarding leftover paint, she often “upcycles” old palette colors into entirely new tones, allowing previous layers and past decisions to subtly live within the final work.

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For Kristen Guest, painting remains deeply connected to physical process and material exploration. What excites her most after all these years is not necessarily the finished piece, but the tactile experience of making it.

“The feel of moving the paint around,” she says. “That’s my goosebump moment.”

That sense of joy feels visible throughout her work. Every layer, texture, and color choice carries evidence of experimentation, intuition, and curiosity.

Perhaps that is why her paintings feel so alive. They are not simply representations of places or moments. They are emotional landscapes; works designed to slow us down long enough to notice light, atmosphere, and beauty again.

And maybe that is the true power of Kristen Guest’s work: not just that it captures a feeling, but that it gently teaches us how to feel it too.