Biography
Christine Kinsey was born in Pont-y-moel, Monmouthshire, Wales. She was Co-Founder, Artistic Director and Administrator of Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff; Co-founder of Artists and Designers in Wales Association; and Artistic Advisor to Cardiff City Council on the re-development of Cardiff City Centre between 1968 and 1976. She worked as an artist and teacher with underprivileged children on the Dutch / French Island of St Maarten and Nevis in the Caribbean between 1976 and 1980. Since her return to Wales in 1981, she has lived and worked in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.
Christine has had seven national and six international solo touring exhibitions. Her work is represented in national collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea; Newport Museum and Art Gallery, Newport, Gwent; Contemporary Art Society of Wales, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff / Carmarthen Museum, Bishops Palace, Carmarthenshire; Newport Museum and Art Gallery, Newport, Gwent; and the University of Winchester, Hampshire. She has work in private collections in Belgium, the Caribbean, Catalonia, Eire, England, Lithuania, Scotland, Switzerland, Wales and the USA.
Christine is the recipient of numerous awards including the Arts Council of Wales’ Mainline Production and Development Grant. She has initiated, curated and organised exhibitions and festivals that have included work by artists and writers including META, a touring exhibition featuring collaborative work by poets and painters, which was exhibited in five venues including Arka Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania in conjunction with the Poetry Spring Festival. Paintings from her series ‘Llais / Voice’ were exhibited in the Opera House, Vilnius, Lithuania in conjunction with the opera ‘Lokys’ by the composer Bronius Kutavičius and at Sofa Gallery, Druskininkai, Lithuania in partnership with Menna Elfyn during the Poetic Fall Arts Festival. She also curated and organised the R.S. Thomas 100th Anniversary Festival and Exhibition, Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw, Gwynedd. Her work was included in the exhibition Kinsey, Roche and Webster in Centre Cultural, Terrassa, Barcelona, Catalonia as well as group exhibitions internationally.
She has been awarded the role of Honorary Fellow at the Metropolitan University, Swansea and Visiting Research Fellow in the Feminist Theology and Art Forum, Institute of Theological Partnerships, University of Winchester, Winchester.
Christine Kinsey has three published books; Imaging the Imagination – An exploration of the relationship between the image and the word in the art of Wales, which she initiated and co-edited with Dr Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan and was published by Gwasg Gomer in 2005. She is the curator and editor of HON Artistiaid Benywaidd yng Nghymru / Women Artists in Wales; a fully bilingual book (Welsh and English) published by the H’mm Foundation in 2022. Her book Truth, Lies & Alibis – Encounters in Images and Words by Christine Kinsey was published by the H’mm Foundation in 2023 (see Published Work page) and her writing has been published in newspapers, magazines and periodicals.