Christine Comyn Christine Comyn was born in Tielt, Belgium in 1957. She studied at the St. Luke Academy in Ghent, Belgium, and later on at the Pedagogic Institute for Promotion, also in Ghent with the intention of becoming an educator. In 1981, she began teaching at the Academy of Modern Art in her hometown of Tielt. At the same time, she was gaining recognition for her watercolors, which often appeared in groups exhibitions. In 1988, Willy Bosschem, director of the Academy of Modern Art of Ostend, Belgium, organized her first solo exhibition at the Thermae Palace Hotel in Ostend, a frequent stopover for Belgium's Royal family. As a result of the sold out status of her watercolors at the first solo exhibition, she began in 1989 to commit her time solely to producing the abstract watercolors that literally sold as quickly as she could paint them. In 1991, the l'Oreal Comestic Group in Brussels commissioned Christine Comyn to produce a series of paintings inspired by the firm's new fragrance line. Her images became the focus of a national promotional campaign and resulted in the printing of two editions of lithographs entitled "Turbulent" and "Shimmering Light". The year 1992 witnessed a more figurative approach in Comyn's work. And, as she so successfully blended the aspects of watercolor and acrylic, image and space, she merged the abstract and figurative within a single frame. Carefully integrated within the total image, figures, insists the artist, are not intended to dominate, or even necessarily to be of central importance. Christine Comyn has coined the term, "figurants", in describing the figural elements in her work. Painted in detail, with a wealth of color, they yet maintain the role of mere "walkers on", a mere element of the entire piece. The artist considers herself an abstract painter above all, allowing the figurative elements of each work simply to enhance an overall image. In 1992, her work began to receive worldwide recognition, with exhibits in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Venezuela, Colombia, Russia and the United States. She was chosen for the National Prize of the Belgian reference yearbook, Kunstenaars en Galerijen (artists and Galleries) in 1997, having been chosen by readers as their artist laureate. Most recently, in June 1998 the artistic director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders commissioned Christine to execute a series of paintings inspired by the ballet. Combining the merits of movement, dance and artistic renderings, she produced a much-lauded body of work that appeared in exhibition at the Royal Ballet's new theater. A special production, "looking through glass", was choreographed by the ballet company and dedicated to Christine Comyn's private collectors worldwide. read more