FreshBump

Chris Classen is a resident of Los Angeles, California; he holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Nebraska, and a Masters of Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI_Arc). On the surface, his work seems to be High Minimalist painting, and there is no denying its quiet, contemplative, and steely presence. However, unlike Minimalism’s absence of the artist’s hand, or even Pop art’s rejection of painting itself, his work relies heavily on rigorous hand-work, and brushed paint. This is less a contradiction and more an essay in the evolution of austerity in modern art.

Using the reductive visual language of minimalism his paintings portray the content, themes and formalities of old European master works. The foremost of these similarities is composition: the layout of each piece is meticulously organized and begins with three main ‘characters’- a protagonist, antagonist, and supporting member.

Layers are then rigorously added, like characters in a play, until the cast is so dense and dramatic that the work can tell its own story. The result is a narrative told through highly controlled and mechanized aesthetics; a narrative that reduces ornament down to the essential. This aesthetic, however, can be hypnotizing without antidote and is why the edge condition is as much a part of the story as the face of the painting.

In his 1966 film, Persona, Ingmar Bergman interjected visual pauses that gave the impression that the projector had jammed; the film melted and burned before resuming. This alienating, self-reflexive technique reminds the film’s viewer that they are a foreign entity, and prevents them from losing their own separate consciousness within the film.

Like Persona’s ability to pull its viewer out of its own reality, the edges of these paintings similarly remind viewers that the dominant smooth surface is not merely an exercise in extruded or machined forms but that of seemingly living, liquid paint.

The drips and rivulets seem to reference other process driven formations like stalactites found in ancient caves where early man invented mark making, or the gothic reaches of a sacred cathedral created during the time of European master painting.

The edge is supremely important, like a fatal flaw in a tragic hero, it reveals the painting’s true nature and history while also commenting on the evolution and vulnerability of the paint medium, and ultimately how these disjointed characteristics exist side by side.

In our post-movement era, when painting has long since been declared dead and seems to constantly search for its life force, his work reverses the vacuum created by the contradictions Modern art and makes sense of our creative evolution. A culmination of contemporary thought infused with the beauty and serenity of the past.

More Info: www.chrisclassen.com