Krista Lee Tunstall started pour painting in 2017 and relocated from Boston to St. Johnsbury in 2023, where she continues her creative practice, blending moody, cosmic-inspired palettes with layered textures. With a background in the spa and wellness industry, Krista approaches art as an energetic practice, often exploring themes of transformation, movement, emotion, and atmosphere.  

Featuring a series of prints derived from Krista’s original acrylic pour paintings and cat-inspired works, her exhibit explores the relationship between abstraction and form. The fluid pour pieces emphasize color interaction, movement, and unpredictability, while the cat imagery introduces recognizable subjects that evoke comfort, personality, and emotional connection. 

Krista’s art style is somewhere between soft and very bold, tying together moody, expressive, unapologetic, sometimes cheeky and always intuitive creativity. Inspired by music, energy shifts, and subtle emotional changes throughout her everyday life, Krista explains that when you feel everything, everywhere, all the time, you can only ground yourself and contain all that emotion and energy for so long. It needs to go somewhere, and that somewhere is her artwork.  

“I grew up being told I was “too sensitive” or “too emotional,” as if those were flaws to fix. My work challenges that idea. Emotion is human—it’s raw, powerful, and alive. It’s the energy behind everything we experience, and I create to honor it, express it, and make space for it to be seen instead of suppressed.” 

Each piece in Krista’s exhibit is a visual and emotional experience, something to be seen, then felt, that invites viewers to be curious about what they’re feeling. Incorporating cat imagery into her artwork felt very relatable to Krista, who explained that cats embody independence, sensitivity, and comfort, but also big boundaries; they feel like emotional mirrors. Dogs are man’s best friend; they are there to be loyal companions. Cats are not there to please anyone. They are there having their own experience on their own time and on their own terms.  

Kista’s studio, Big Mood Studio, is located in St. Johnsbury. While her studio is registered and operated as a business for practical reasons, Krista explains that at its core, it isn’t something she “built” in a traditional sense: It’s an ecosystem built around who she is and her desire to share that with the world. Find more of Krista’s art online at bigmoodstudio.org or @thebigmoodstudio on Instagram and @bigmoodart on Facebook.