Meet Hawaii Artist Christie Marie Elder-Russell
Meet Local Kauai Island Artist Christie E. Russell
Christie’s “Aloha Aina” (Love of the Land) reverberates through her art in powerful ways as she shares her deep connection with nature through her multiple mediums of art. Her mediums include large murals, oil painting, watercolor, tattooing, airbrushed polyurethane on metal and graphic design. As a child she was influenced by her artist Grandmother to start painting in Oils and Watercolor and at age eleven she did her first solo mural for her elementary school.
But… Christie’s life went in a different direction than her art dream at age sixteen as she had the opportunity to turn pro and go on world tour as a professional snowboarder. With her adventurous heart she jumped at the opportunity and worked hard to graduate a year early from high school with college credits and got to business getting sponsors to work with and was jet set on her eleven year (1989-2000) career as a professional athlete traveling to contests, doing photo and film shoots for magazines and movies and teaching and training in the summer on the glacier in Mt. Hood, Oregon. She competed in freestyle events of Halfpipe, Slopestyle, Big Air and Boardercross in the X-Games, Vans Triple Crowns, Dew Tours, Burton U.S. Open, World Championships, Nippon Open to just name a few. Notably winning both the Vans Triple Crown and the Nippon (Japanese) Open in Halfpipe during her extensive career.
Christie continued to study in the arts during her snowboard career always carrying a sketch book, painting when she could, doing graphics for two of her own signature model snowboards and tattooing in tattoo studios in her off seasons of snowboarding.
After retiring from snowboarding Christie focused most of her energy on her family and two boys. She took opportunities to paint and donated murals to her church and her boys elementary school. Once her boys were older she started painting more and joined the Tahoe Art League participating in seasonal art shows in and around Lake Tahoe and was the President of the Art League in 2012.
Christie moved in 2024 to the garden island of Kauai, Hawaii with her son and is now celebrating as of July 2025 opening of her first Art Gallery in Kalapaki Bay, Lihue in the Anchor Cove Mall. You can find her five days a week painting live or working on her business in her new gallery.
Kauai Christie's Art 3366 Waapa Rd. Suite 506 Lihue, HI 96766
Tuesday - Saturday 10 am - 5 pm
Closed - Sundays & Mondays
For private showings at Kauai Christie's Art Gallery please call or text her at (808)346-2017
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Mahalo!
Links to interviews for Christie Marie:
Tahoe Quarterly : Early Inspirationsin Arts, Winter 2015-2016 http://tahoequarterly.com/arts/early-inspirations
