Christy hengst

Christy Hengst’s work ranges from community oriented public art projects across several countries, to intimate paintings created in her studio in Santa Fe.  

Site-specific public pieces, most involving clay, include three bus stop shelters in Santa Fe, a large collaborative sculpture with volcano for a plaza in Ecuador, two Haiku paths (SFCC and the Audubon Center), a collaborative boat on climate change for a playground, and the four-year traveling international installation "birds in the park”. 

Hengst’s paintings layer multiple materials and methods including printmaking, drawing, text, wax and sometimes fired porcelain.  They have been exhibited in solo shows in galleries and museums nationally and internationally, including solo shows at Ellsworth Gallery and Box Gallery in Santa Fe, NM; BBK Gallery in Aachen, Germany; the Museum of Modern Art in Cuenca, Ecuador; the Museum of Fine Arts in Las Cruces, NM; and the IX Bienal of Painting in Ecuador.

Soon after graduating from Amherst College in 1989, Christy Hengst set off westward in a station wagon with a cabinet full of gessoed panels, a cigar box of oil sticks, and a bed in the back. Visiting people and painting all along the way, she eventually landed in Santa Fe, NM.  There she met her future husband and creative partner, German blacksmith Helmut Hillenkamp, with whom she has since collaborated on many public and private projects, including raising two kids.

Hengst’s long-term meditation practice has also influenced her creative investigation into present-moment awareness and sensing.