Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

The Surreal Paintings of Chris Austin

In Chris Austin's surreal paintings, the overlooked giants of the ocean make their way across landscapes and suburban settings. His recent show with Antler Gallery, titled “Unfamiliar,” offered new work from the artist, who often focuses on the elegance and plight of nature and its inhabitants.

In Chris Austin’s surreal paintings, the overlooked giants of the ocean make their way across landscapes and suburban settings. His recent show with Antler Gallery, titled “Unfamiliar,” offered new work from the artist, who often focuses on the elegance and plight of nature and its inhabitants.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3K8n6nDrtn/

“His work utilizes a surrealist vision of the natural world to tell stories about significant encounters and incidents. A little girl in a yellow rain slicker stands in for the viewer in several works, bearing witness to levitating sharks and orcas as they move through the woods. The inexplicable nature of these scenes draws us into a world out of kilter, its central figures displaced, and ask us to reflect on our own assumptions about the natural order of things.”

Find more on the gallery’s site and the artist’s Instagram page.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4dWBgaD0uv/

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
The childhood toys of surrealist painter Geoffrey Gersten visit the Cold War era in his current exhibition at Copro Gallery, "MK-ULTRA Wars." The show coincides with Anthony Ausgang's equally whimsical exhibition "Catascopes." Gersten takes his title and inspiration from the CIA's mind control program "Project MKUltra," which illegally ran drug testing from the 1950s to early 70s. The project is used as a metaphor for Gersten's paintings, which infuse conflict into otherwise dreamy landscapes populated by candy colored characters.
Bright flora bursts in Kent Williams's paintings (featured in HF Vol. 21). Thick brushstrokes of hot pink, mint and navy hint at an arrangement of organic growths. Williams frequently positions his subjects in the outdoors, where they inhabit areas that seem wild and overgrown yet feel contained like miniature Edens. His characters fervently move as if enacting a frenetic dance performance, their motion captured by his expressive use of paint. While Williams has been widely recognized for his figurative work over the past 20 years, his first solo show with 101/Exhibit in Los Angeles, "How Human of You," marks a shift into abstraction. Figures are still present in many of the works, but Williams removes the idea of time and place, instead suspending them in an imaginary space where his flamboyant color choices elicit a visceral, emotional response.
The chimerical paintings of Yosuke Ueno return in a new show at Thinkspace Projects. “But Beautiful,” kicking off this weekend, features works from the self-taught, Tokyo-based painter that take influence from “everything from Japanese culture, ancient Greek mythology, Tokyo Street fashion and video games to Disney animation and the Western canon of art history.” Ueno was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
In painter-cartoonist Guy Colwell’s new show at La Luz de Jesus Gallery, there’s a particular focus on complex relationships between humans and animals. “The Wayward Ape,” running April 5-28, tracks how our evolution has gone beyond nature’s intentions. The resulting explorations look at both violence and ignorance. Colwell was last featured on HiFructose.com here.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List