As an artist and backpacker, I explore the profound connection between identity and environment by interpreting landscapes in two-dimensional, 100% wool feltings. In more than 10,000 miles of backcountry adventures, I’ve collected countless photographs, sketches, and stories that inform my art practice. Using wool, an organic material, I create artwork that invites viewers to consider their relationship to the rest of the natural world.
My artistic adventures begin where my travels end: back at my studio in rural Kentucky. Using both needle-felting and wet-felting techniques, I apply dyed wool onto a background of wool shorn from my family’s pet sheep, imbuing my work with a sense of place and gratitude to the natural world.
Guided by my background in environmental studies, I began felting as a way to relive my experiences and inspire a conservation ethos in viewers of my work. For the last several years, I have focused on large-format feltings that evoke the grandeur of expansive natural landscapes, awaken a sense of wonder and reverence, and transport viewers to the backcountry.
My artistic explorations have evolved to consider questions of identity and the intersection between personal experience and the natural world. As a neurodivergent person with a history of chronic illness, I find solace and empowerment in the wilderness. My newest body of work explores what it means to navigate the backcountry through the lens of an individual perspective, contemplating the complex interplay between landscape and personal identity.
Through my work, I create a space for dialogue, introspection, and advocacy about what it means to be human in a world that keeps geologic time.
Kris Grenier 