Christine Crook
Christine Crook, Detroit Monster, 2019
Christine Crook, Pink Baba, 2020
Christine Crook, Blue Bird, 2022
Christine Crook, Desert Baba, 2019
Christine Crook is a costume and performance artist based in New Orleans. Her wildly strange costumes and performance art are a recent divergence from a long established career in costume design for theatre, opera, and dance. Through this divergence she experiments with abstract costumes that re-imagine the structure of how design is utilized in performance, and offers a poetic interpretation of character through costume and other visual forms. Her recent studio work is inspired by traditions in drag, folk art, the occult, and global masquerade. These influences are often blended through an eccentric campy lens that celebrates women, and challenges stereotypes of gender, and sexuality. Christine’s work aims to allow the costume to exist on its own as a magical sculpture distorting and transforming the body of the wearer. Christine has presented design-driven live art and costume installations with Metalhaus Gallery, Failed Films Festival, Dream Farm Commons, FILF Fashion, Z Space, and Shotgun Players. She was awarded a Bridging The Gap Grant for continued experimentation with costume design funding a gallery residency in Berlin 2017. She also participated as an artist in residence with Light Box in Detroit 2019. Christine has an MFA in Costume Design from UC San Diego, and teaches costume design with the Academy of Art University.