KRIS MANNING

Artist I Fabricator I Builder of Impossible Things

Working from the Dream Theatre, her studio on a small farm in Barnard, Vermont, she creates creatures, sculptures, paintings, and objects that blur the line between natural history and impossible history.

Her work begins with a question: What if this existed?

From there, she builds the evidence using sculpture, painting, fiber, found objects, fabrication, and whatever material the idea demands. The creatures that emerge are not simply characters, but inhabitants of an evolving world, each with its own biology, behavior, purpose, and story.

Manning’s background is unusually varied. She is also a lifelong musician and educator, with decades of experience as a professional percussionist, entrepreneur, and builder of creative communities. That history of rhythm, performance, problem solving, and making things from scratch continues to inform the way she works.

Her current practice centers on The Dream Theatre and its growing collection of specimens, artifacts, field observations, and unexplained phenomena.