Kristin Petrillo | Reconsidering the Ordinary
It All Tastes The Same | Acrylic on canvas, 12 × 12 inches, Kristin Petrillo (Artists on Fire, 2025)
“Every composition should evoke an emotional response that makes the viewer reconsider what they might have otherwise dismissed.” — Kristin Petrillo
At Juniper Rag, the role we take as curators is not simply to select art—it’s to recognize the spark that separates great work from exceptional. At Juniper Rag, we also market our exhibitions to target audiences to deliver this work to as many viewers as we can. Our curatorial choices are based on decades of art buying, art direction and the ability to spot and forecast trends and artwork that has significant value based on a wide range of criteria. Our choices, although subjective, are founded in a proven track record to select work that can stand the test of time. A trained eye, knowledge about processes and skills—but also, intuition. We get a “vibration from afar”. We get instinctive and sense when an artist has “got the stuff”, is on the cusp of something lasting, important or worthy of more people seeing it. It is an excitement to share. At Juniper Rag, we recognize the power of this vision—an ability to select works that not only resonate in the present but have the potential to become best-sellers and collector staples for decades to come. A curator makes labored choices not of guesswork, but as a cultivated art in itself.
Kristin Petrillo, one of our Curator’s Choice Awardees, embodies the rare balance of technical mastery, conceptual depth, and an unwavering commitment to craft. In a vibrant art world, it’s up to the curator’s eye to call attention to art in their exhibitions and celebrate each artist’s brilliance, and Kristin’s work commands top recognition. Her thoughtful compositions and refined execution are a reminder that professionalism, attention to detail, and raw talent are not just admirable—they're essential in shaping the future of contemporary art in a very saturated community. On the part of the artists, knowing what exhibitions to ender, understanding the curators’ backgrounds and history must be taken into account.
There is a lot of fine work in Artists on Fire, and we celebrate a few artists just rise above the fold.
Time Span I, II and III | Acrylic on canvas, 12 × 24 inches, Kristin Petrillo (Artists on Fire, 2025)
JR Please share 5 elements that you continuously obsess about. Things that light your fire, give you goosebumps, distract you and make you think. Identify the gossamer threads that connect your work to these subjects—you have identified your “timbre”, your marks of distinction by inspiration, made only by you.
KP
Architecture, but especially bricks! I love old factory buildings. The way they are built reveals the story of our commercial and industrial past.
Neon and other signage
Sunlight and shadow
The beauty of the ordinary
Small degrees of color variation
JR Kristin Petrillo’s reductive urban landscapes stand apart in a genre often filled with bright facades and whimsical charm. While many artists who paint color-rich cityscapes lean into playfulness or nostalgia, Petrillo brings a sense of quiet precision and emotional clarity to her compositions. Her work recalls the vibrant urban subjects of artists like Stephen Magsig or Richard Estes, yet she softens and strips down the photo real edges with painterly simplicity and intentional abstraction in her cropped compositions. Unlike the overly stylized or decorative and reflective approaches often seen in this genre, Petrillo’s paintings are both joyful and grounded—offering not just a scene, but a moment of lived experience. Her buildings breathe with personality, rendered in hues that are exuberant without ever shouting, always balanced by a meticulous eye for light, geometry, and harmony.
Idle Hour | Acrylic on canvas, Kristin Petrillo
JR Your perspective becomes your uniqueness—the life experience and knowledge that makes you, YOU. People respond to your perspective wrapped up in your timbre. Explain your unique perspective?
KP My perspective is shaped by years as a graphic designer, where I learned to see structure, rhythm, and harmony in everything. That trained eye for composition and color translates into my paintings.
JR We can relate to Kristin’s answer completely, coming from a graphic design background ourselves. There are a lot of graphic designers out there. Great graphic design skills sharpen a fine artist’s sense of composition, balance, and visual impact. Understanding the principles of clarity, contrast, and spatial rhythm often cross over, guiding how an artist structures a painting and engages the viewer’s eye. Kristin Petrillo brings her design background into her urban landscapes in a way that each piece feels thoughtfully constructed, with architectural lines and color blocks arranged almost like a poster or layout. This mature fusion of design sensibility and her painterly technique gives her work a modern, crisp, intentional quality that stands out and gets noticed.
JR Who is your inspiration from history who achieved something similar to what your art is striving to say? What artists do you identify with and why?
KP I’m deeply inspired by the modernist movement sometimes called Precisionism—artists like Charles Sheeler, Charles Demuth, and Ralston Crawford—who captured the rise of industry with clarity and structure. My work reflects the other end of that story, often depicting the remnants of an industrial era in decline. Viewers also frequently mention Edward Hopper, likely because of the way I use light and the absence of figures, which creates a sense of stillness and solitude.
Candy-Colored Steam Machine Dreams | Acrylic on canvas, Kristin Petrillo
“My work amplifies light and color in the most unassuming places, inviting a longer look at what our lives are built upon yet we rarely notice.”
JR Decipher a personified rule, unique to others to make your work interesting adding eccentricity and character. Please share.
KP “Every composition should evoke an emotional response that makes the viewer reconsider what they might have otherwise dismissed.”
JR Mediums. Each chosen medium has a reason for being there, explain your choice of mediums to clarify its importance.
KP I use acrylic paint. The rapid drying time of acrylics suits my “hard edge” style.
JR Write a single sentence about your work that instantly would prompt curiosity to your viewer, and ultimately to your dream curator. Think of vulnerabilities, reasons why and how you achieve something important in your work.
KP My work amplifies light and color in the most unassuming places, inviting a longer look at what our lives are built upon yet we rarely notice.
JR Most artists create work intuitively without even knowing why. If you struggle with knowing, begin by explaining what you hide most and what you repeat often.
KP I am very aware of the why and how. I wander around on sunny days, seeking inspiration in unexpected places and I usually find it!
JR Ultimately, let’s say your platform is a worldwide space of ideology without the confines of social media. Be intentional and move in a direction that will elevate the message you want to share. What would you be doing with your art without social media?
KP Bring back the salon! I am imagining a small curated show with a strong theme. It would be ticketed for multiple nights. The hosts would provide a structured way for people to discuss the art in the show with prompts, or the addition of video media.
Poles | Acrylic on canvas, Kristin Petrillo
JR Imagine or reality— Travel anywhere you can for inspiration and self-enlightenment, or visit parks and hike or go somewhere just to be alone with yourself. Shut off the world, listen to your voice, write down or sketch and let your soul free so you can identify your path and yearly goals. Share anything you want about how new environments and introspection affect your practice.
KP While I love a walk in the woods, what inspires me is far more urban. I would tour America’s lost industrial cities—Detroit, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, etc.—and create a body of work showcasing the lonely remnants of our past. I’d like to include both the original photographs and the final paintings, side by side.
JR In your art journey, share a time when you followed your fears, broke down walls, discovered yourself. It’s not always pretty—but it always leads to growth. Your example could help others.
KP Public speaking has always made me uncomfortable, and I often convince myself I have nothing worth saying about my work—which I know isn’t true! This spring, I pushed past that fear by accepting an invitation to speak to a group of high school students as part of a show with Matthew Dickey at Governor’s Academy. My anxiety drove me to prepare thoroughly, which became a gift: it forced me to reflect deeply on what I do, why I do it, and how I approach my process. In the end, what I feared became an experience that strengthened my confidence and connection to my own work.
JR Once you are accepted into an exhibition, please share your insight about how to make the most of your inclusion before, during and after.
KP Once accepted into an exhibition, I think it’s important to approach it as more than a single event—it’s an opportunity to build momentum. Before the show, I share news via social to invite people and generate interest. During the exhibition, I make a point to show up, engage with visitors, and connect with others. Those conversations often lead to future opportunities. Afterward, I document the experience through photos and video, and update my CV and website.
KRISTIN PETRILLO
STATEMENT:
Kristin Petrillo is a painter captivated by the fleeting effects of light and shadow and their power to alter mood. Her recent work transforms industrial architecture and deserted urban landscapes from mundane to evocative through color manipulation and streamlined forms. She explores urban environments on foot, taking photographs which she then digitally alters before translating them into acrylic paintings. Her bold, flat, and colorful style often departs significantly from reality, blending graphic elements with minimalist tendencies to evoke a lingering human presence.
BIO:
Kristin Petrillo never met a brick building she didn’t like and knows a fire hydrant can be full of personality. Painting in her home studio in Worcester, Massachusetts, her paintings explore how industrial architecture and uninhabited urban environments are transformed from banal to evocative through the power of light and shadow. Her visual approach is characterized by a bold use of color and a crisp, graphic style that flirts with minimalism. Kristin’s paintings are in private collections and have been shown at numerous juried exhibitions. She won the Saara Parker Painting Prize at the 88th Annual Regional Exhibition of Art and Craft, Fitchburg Art Museum, first and third prizes at the 2024/25 Artists on Fire, and her work was included in the 21st ArtsWorcester Biennial.
JR After researching Precisionism, we learned that its clean lines, architectural focus, and industrial clarity— this pop-ish painting style that feels very screen printed, first emerged in early 20th-century American art—but its influence continues to ebb and flow in contemporary painting and applied to other subject matter as well as architecture and landscapes, but even to portraiture, like Katz. Today, we're seeing a quiet resurgence of this style, especially among artists like Kristin who are drawn to sunny urban geometry, structured compositions and shadows, and the aesthetics of stillness and order. In a chaotic, overstimulated digital world, Precisionism inspired art offers a kind of visual calm—a return to form, light, and intention. Viewing Kristin’s work always gives us that.
Contemporary interpretations often blend the original movement's sharpness with softer palettes, alternate brushwork styles, or layered abstraction. Artists like Kristin Petrillo subtly echo these Precisionist roots, but give them new character, capturing the solid dignity of buildings and streetscapes while infusing a new warmth and modern sensitivity. We think this evolution speaks to a desire for balance between structure and soul and preservation of the past—proof that even as styles evolve, the underlying draw of clarity and craft remains timeless, delivered to many more through the artist’s eyes.
During Artists on Fire, we noticed that everyone walking by Kristin’s work had to lean in for a closer look. She draws her viewers into her precise and meticulous dreamy pictures and they escape for a moment.
If you are interested in any of Kristin’s work, please let us know info@juniperrag dot com.
