About the Artist
What is the body? Countless artists have studied, drawn, painted, sketched, and sculpted them throughout history, yet there is no final answer or singular masterpiece that captures the body. Sociologists argue whether “the body” is a biological concept, or an ever-changing reflection of the culture and circumstances around it. As with many other disciplines, the pursuit of understanding and sharing that knowledge is the joy and burden of an artist. Interpreting and portraying the juncture between these two disciplines, art and sociology, has been my passion for years.
Human bodies, bodies of water, earthly bodies and celestial – yet all are both incomplete and perfected in each moment of time. The changing nature of the body throughout life and the earth throughout seasons. I capture these moments, this essence of a body, in materials such as chalk, charcoals, pencils, pastels, and black and white papers; all showing not only a finished piece, but the journey of discovery along the way.
Biography
Libby Cripps was raised in a family that moved every few years, ranging from Italy to California. This
early cultural exposure set the stage for a lifetime of curiosity and cultural awareness. She explored
art in many forms, but returned again and again to drawing. Her passion and developing skill earned
her recognition as early as high school, where her works became part of a ten-year exhibition in
North Carolina’s state government building.
Like one in four women, she married a man who became abusive; and like most, it took her
nearly seven years to leave the marriage and begin to face the reality of being one of the abused. In
the years that followed she began to educate herself about abuse, victimology, and the culture of
shame around it. Her advocacy for other victims began with donations of art to charity auctions and
grew into a core principle of her art itself. In 2011, she and her new husband lost their first child to
an early term pregnancy. In her grief she again turned to drawing to “speak” about unspeakable
pain. Here again she found a miasma of shame, and a hidden sisterhood who all felt alone, but were
nearly commonplace in their loss.
In 2013 she enrolled in Cuesta College and began to study Fine Art formally. Marriage, and a
cross country move had her finishing that Associates of Fine Arts two years later at San Luis Obispo
College in California. Here one professor forever changed her work, assigning the class a series of
pieces on black paper. The adjustment wasn’t easy, but it became critical. For her, working on black
paper meant literally bringing to light images, pictures, stories, out of the darkness.
2015 marked a turning point, where she refused to be silent any longer about painful topics
or social shame. Her work began to focus on cycles of loss and rebirth, drawing connections
between humanity and nature in this cycle of life and death.
It was nearly 10 years later when the opportunity for formal education arose again, and she
began seeking her Bachelors of Fine Arts at Arizona State University. During her time there she
grasped the opportunity to study in greater depth about challenges women have faced historically
and today. During that time, she also worked with refugees from Afghanistan in inhumane
conditions and camps.
By the time she graduated with honors in 2025, advocacy and awareness had become
central themes within her artwork. Intimacy became crucial as she turned to softer materials
applied mostly by touch. Texture and light became tools to pull images from darkness, as her work
seeks to pull community out of shame.
