HomeBrew

Alright – so heres the ticket.

Sometime after February 1, there will be a showing of my friends and my works. It will happen at my house, in the evening, probably on a weekend. I officially invite the entire world to come over and look at this. I don’t know who will curate the show, maybe all of us, maybe my neighbor… who knows. But so far I’ve gotten word back from Ramsey B., Giuli P., Cory C., Nat W.(soon to be C no?), Ben W., and Adam S. – I’ve got to invite a few more friends as well. The plan is the fill my house from ceiling to floor with all my friends and my stuff. I’m also trying to get some live music to occur on the same evening as the artness, with that I’ve got Collin Campbell on cello (i think hes down with classical stuff and maybe some experimental).

As for a conceptual connection, or some kind of linking theme or motif”’ – “Friends” + “Work” + “Home” – I want to explore each of my friends’ personal relationship to making art in their life, making their life out of art. I want the show also to have some sort of communal feeling – we’re all friends, we’ve known each other for quite a while, we all went to school together and lived in baltimore together – so maybe the art on the wall (in its confused and chaotic hanging state) won’t have any kind of labels or signs – that way people will have to communicate with each other and the artists if they’re curious about something, and that way their minds can be left to wonder with only themselves and the wonderful art work that’ll be up. But really I think the show will be less conceptual – and more about the building of an artistic community, creative relationships, human connection.

Friends + Art + Music + Food =

(notice the priorities there, thats why i’m skinny.)

As I get this thing together and more concrete, I will post dates and times, artists, maybe some art samples? food menu? music line up?

Tha Best,

Chris

Senior Thesis 1-UPs

Heres new shots of my senior thesis paintings. Thanks again to Dan for the nice photographs of the work

A few comments that these paintings have received go something like…

These abstract painting “moves” (the individual elements) remind me of old atari video games – ie. your are a little square, or a few pixels that resemble the outline of a human form. You move through a world of mundane pixelated images, yet your imagination turns those 2 dimensional green blobs into ferocious alligators. I think the person was trying to say that each element seemed like a wonderful facilitator for imagination and movement. Good. Another comment was that there were so many different elements all individual elements became meaningless in this giant mess. Sweet.

Here they are – They used to have fun titles, but I have misplaced the old cards and forgotten them… so for now, the only title I can remember is…

“Empathy is Most Comfortable Pair of Underwear.” (All paintings are 4′x2′, acrylic on mdf board) each individual painting is a link to itself, its not only one big image.

sdshw

Heres a painting I’ve been working on, on the side of my “squares” project. This one is a quasi-tribute to Marla Olmstead, the famous (or infamous?) painter born in 2000. Its two canvases stretched and then connected, the white space at the bottom-right is actually nothing.

“The Northern Lights Will Never Reach Kentucky”

I find the Marla Olmstead case quite extraordinary. A child’s innocent creation, made into a real something by the coaching and adjustments of her father – both father and daughter, together, the perfect portrait of an artist. Innocence and Experience, working together, butting heads, and in the end, creating something… whether or not that thing is good or bad, interesting or passe… I think such a genuine example of artistic creativity is beautiful, and seeing the output of such a process… whew. yes.

sorry my posts are few and far between. I do have to paint these things – that takes a while. And then I don’t own a digital camera so… that makes things harder. But thanks to Daniel Shea, he took all the squared painting shots, the image above, and hes also working on my senior thesis paintings as we speak, thanks buddy, I owe you a beer or four… no headbutts this time, f’real.

oh that reminds me, I’m about to update the square painting post, so look for a newish painting in there.

Chris