About
Artist Statement
The face is the central symbol in my work. There is humanity behind pain. Pain affects each person differently, and medications are often needed. They can help us function, but they can also influence mood, behavior, personality, and our sense of self. I recycle prescription labels, medicine containers, and other fragments from my own journey with medications because they are an integral part of my story. The people in these individual, self-expressive portraits stand on a stage—the stage of life—living with chronic illness. The face keeps each person present behind the pain, medication, and diagnosis.
Biography
Kurt Fondriest is a Chicago mixed-media artist, Registered Expressive Arts Therapist, and expressive arts minister who has worked in the expressive arts since 1980. He holds a BFA from Columbus College of Art & Design and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1991 to 2019, he worked at Misericordia Home, developing and teaching expressive arts programs for people with developmental disabilities. He currently serves on the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association’s review committee for Registered Expressive Arts Therapist applications.
Fondriest’s work has been exhibited in Chicago and nationally, including at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Drawing from his own experience of chronic pain, he has long used art as a means of addressing pain, health, and healing. His work Little Tree, about the power of expressive arts in living with chronic pain, has appeared in health publications and has been featured by a national fibromyalgia organization. His current mixed-media work brings together portraiture, found objects, prescription materials, humor, memory, pain, and mental health.
Featured: August 2026 IEATA Member Spotlight
Kurt Fondriest was featured by the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA) in its August 2026 Member Spotlight. The four-page profile explores his creative journey, nearly three decades at Misericordia Home, expressive-education approach, service on IEATA’s review committee, and continuing work with art, spirituality, disability, and chronic pain.