2019

My work is an investigation of the human cost of Capitalism - and the delusions, fantasies, and toxic emotions that are attached to that relationship. There is a repetition of self-flagellation in a meditative response to media consumption, targeted marketing, socially embedded masculinity, and the dehumanization required of capitalism worship.  Building on the rich tradition of Dadaism and Magical Realism, I experiment with the intersection of text and image to explore language as a medium. Embedded within, is a macabre, mercurial, and humorously self-deprecating grotesqueness often used to mask a dangerous mix of fear and frustrated anger. 

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I use saturated and saccharine colors to a point of excess because this whole world is about excess and I confront the viewer with the uncomfortable nature of this fact.  I layer and rework my drawings and paintings to instill the anxiety, nervousness, and trepidation of our grim reality; as a physical discipline and manifestation within my work.  The texture evokes feelings of layers of cheap varnish over a slowly decaying palace.  I encourage the viewer to lean in and absorb the minutiae and labor involved in making something so decadent as a direct comparison to the luxury we see around us.  

 

My goal in my artistic approach is to pull my viewers in with seemingly sophomoric humor and then force them to confront them with the dark reality of the world.  The closer they look, the more they see the exploitation, greed, and death involved in maintaining a lifestyle of wealth, leisure, and luxury.  I also realize that many of my audience members are part of the culture I am critiquing and their viewership and presence should be a source of cheeky irony in the reception of my work.

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Christopher Evans (b.1985, Schenectady, NY, USA) is an artist, educator, and writer.  Christopher holds an MA in Studio Arts from the University at Albany and a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of South Florida.  There is a heavy influence from teaching himself to draw by copying comic books and his anxiety from being raised with an apocalyptic evangelical worldview.  He draws from his own depression, anxiety, and unique evangelical upbringing.  His work is saturated with obviousness, grotesqueness, clichés, and bad jokes as he tries to navigate causations and contradictions through an abstract narrative visually. Christopher currently works and resides in Saratoga Springs, NY.

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