Chris Truman

Region: Pacific Coast

I construct paintings with compound spaces in which iconic styles and painterly methods mingle seamlessly, appearing to form a complete and structured whole. Upon closer examination, one finds the visual space incongruent. Illusory space conflicts with flat planes of abstracted space, and the physicality of the paint clashes with perceptual aspects. The form of the painting cannot be fully resolved. I am interested in the moment of discovery, when the failure of the whole leads to deeper exploration of the intricacies and relationships that inhabit the painting.

My source material comes from contemporary and modern painting history, and architecture, advertising, and media imagery. The resulting painting is at once a single object, a composite of multiple works and a field of simultaneous interactions. This manner of working aligns itself with contemporary attitudes towards self-presentation and tendencies toward plural identity, wherein one can inhabit multiple identities by mimicking fragments and pieces of society at large.