Chris Rivers

Pontone Gallery is proud to present ‘Odyssey’, a new suite of paintings by Chris Rivers. His signature-style is much in evidence, typified by emphatically gestural handling, a sumptuous colour palette and a dramatic evocation of pictorial space.

United Kingdom

London

Pontone Gallery

Painting

This Was Once a Pretty Landscape 2

Born in 1983, Chris Rivers is a self taught artist from Manchester, England. A former professional rock drummer, Rivers began painting in 2014. His large and dramatic oil paintings are bold, abstract displays of charged colour and fine, surrealistic detail. 

Not everything is as it first seems in these worlds. Soft light filters through overlaying mists of complimentary tones, gradually swelling with dramatic saturated colour before receding into the image. Upon closer inspection, these clouds are populated by minute details; flowers, insects, figures and other characters scatter and interact across the painted surface, offering a sense of scale to the great haze of abstract colour.  Distinct rococo elements can also be detected, as curvilinear motifs fade in and out of the vibrant, bustling compositions.

Headspace 2

A Figure in the Outer Woods

Fading Roses and the Bright Stars

Sleeping Fairies and Savage Unicorns 1

Landmass

Fading Sunflowers and the Bright Stars

Angels are Astronauts Study

Untitled; Study 1

Untitled; Study 2

Earth Garden

Jupiter Garden

Adam and Eve are Astronauts who fell from Outer Space 2

Each ‘Angels are Astronauts’ picture references a particular planet of the solar system, as well as the Sun. The scenes are swirling vortices of turbid colour, allusive to the popularly- perceived characteristics of each subject: for example, Mars, Jupiter and the Sun are hot- hued, Earth watery and Mercury darkly fluid. Small figures in spacesuits tumble through vaporous skeins and veils of paint. These are interstellar landscapes, fantasy worlds, which read as surreal collisions between the sci-fi images of Kubrick’s ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’ and Monet’s lily ponds.

Angels are Astronauts - Venus

Angels are Astronauts - Uranus

Angels are Astronauts - Sun

Angels are Astronauts - Pluto

Angels are Astronauts - Neptune

Angels are Astronauts - Mars

Angels are Astronauts - Earth

Pontone Gallery is proud to present ‘Odyssey’, a new suite of paintings by Chris Rivers. His signature-style is much in evidence, typified by emphatically gestural handling, a sumptuous colour palette and a dramatic evocation of pictorial space.

The pictures are divided into two subsidiary themes: ‘Angels are Astronauts’ and ‘Sleeping Fairies and Savage Unicorns’. There are also some closely-related, supporting works.

Each ‘Angels are Astronauts’ picture references a particular planet of the solar system, as well as the Sun. The scenes are swirling vortices of turbid colour, allusive to the popularly- perceived characteristics of each subject: for example, Mars, Jupiter and the Sun are hot- hued, Earth watery and Mercury darkly fluid. Small figures in spacesuits tumble through vaporous skeins and veils of paint. These are interstellar landscapes, fantasy worlds, which read as surreal collisions between the sci-fi images of Kubrick’s ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’ and Monet’s lily ponds.

‘Sleeping Fairies and Savage Unicorns’ takes us into a terrestrial world of pastoral reverie. The focus is on landscape and its abstractions. Rivers’ expressive manipulation of oil paint makes turbulent, shifting panoramas. Cursive brush marks and graphic scribblings describe succulent vegetal forms and half-seen fragments of land, sea and sky. This is where you may well see mythical creatures, conjured from fevered dreams.

These paintings are romantic. They describe euphoric states. The title of the exhibition, ‘Odyssey’, directly refers to a long journey, where perceptions are challenged and consciousness altered. Rivers’ practice reflects and underlines this: his representations and surfaces are fractured and break from illusion to abstraction at a glance. These paintings posit a world of multiple possibilities, where realities are made and remade. At some point the tiny astronaut at the centre of this elemental maelstrom, has to ask, in the light of an apparently never-ending quest, “are we there yet?” and perhaps “what do we do now?”

Chris Rivers | Odyssey

Chris Rivers | Odyssey

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