Christine Forni’s studio is situated in a sunlit industrial building in Chicago, Illinois. Light saturates the space, adding warmth and comfort to her art collections, as the city skyline peeks through the urban haze in the distance. My eyes flit about her workspace, observing sculpture, painting, drawing, and photography - all these mediums reflecting a study of the natural world.

What drew me to Forni’s practice in the first place was her photograms, created by casting porcelain ferns, philodendrons, and other leafy specimens. Hundreds of these casts inhabit the space, some worked into sculptural works- strung together with thin strings and pinned to the wall in various forms. She has also taken these porcelain castings into the photography darkroom to create a series of related prints.

In the darkroom, she lays the castings onto light-sensitive paper and exposes them to light for a specified amount of time. As the light leaks through the porcelain castings, it creates an x-ray like effect. The photographs reveal skeletal details of the leaf lines and varying thicknesses, all translated into a grey, black, and white image. To complete these works, Forni brings back the artist’s hand atop the image by painting a grid of colored marks around the black and white leaves. She also circles details of certain plants in graphite pencil for the audience to ruminate upon.

These works are spellbinding - they read as delicate and bold at once, contrasting the stark black and white against her hand-made marks of sage, marigold, and sky blue. She has a few works framed in her studio space, and I can already envision the series for a client’s workspace. Framed in a classic white, or black, or metallic option - these pieces would complement and enhance any work environment.

To see her work in person is to experience the materiality of all of the layers she creates. From the velvet rich paper to the texture of the paint itself, Forni’s works are pieces to stop and take note of before moving past. It is here you can dive into the documentary quality finding the nods to scientific study, and admiring their ultimate beauty as objects. We have found our clients are often excited to be invited physically closer to observe details that may otherwise go unnoticed on a day-to-day basis. Such experiences being offered by their artwork collection, allow for moments to reflect upon nature, and have a proverbial “breath of fresh air” in an otherwise urban office environment.

Forni also works large-scale. On one wall of her studio, sheets of paper, pinned to the wall at 6 feet by 5 feet are organically layered in rock and mineral paint. A mystical forest is depicted, dreamily disappearing and reappearing upon the surface. A pond of red-brown minerals will oxidize, changing the coloring of the art piece over time. Other works are made with graphite and oil, pushing and pulling against one another-- graphite carving away at the oil and oil slicking over the smooth graphite. Her drawings, like her sculptures, are organic in nature, mimicking the vines and other leafy specimens Forni is actively engaging with.

At the end of my visual journey with Forni at her studio, I feel inspired by the determination she has for documenting her travels, collected specimens, and inspirations-- an experience quite relatable to my own as an art consultant. I look forward to finding opportunities for our client’s where this artwork will be a natural fit.

To see more of Christine Forni’s work, check out her website or Instagram.

In the Studio with Christine Forni