Sept - Oct
Solo exhibition
Project 4 Gallery, Washington, DC
June 1 - 29
Bethesda Painting Awards Exhibition
Gallery B, Bethesda, MD
June 13 - August 3
Strictly Painting 9
McLean Project for the Arts, McLean, VA
June 8 - July 20
Dreamtime: New Surrealism
Mirus Gallery, San Francisco, CA
New American Paintings, 2013 Southern Issue, No. 106
Juror Miranda Lash, New Orleans Museum of Art
March 30 - May 16
In Case We Don't Die
Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
March 4 - April 6
Beyond Vision: Messages from the Holographic Universe
Salisbury University Art Galleries, Salisbury, MD - Catalog
January 3 - Feb 10
On Entry
RARE Gallery, New York, NY - Catalog
contact information
Nina Rizzo
Monica Palma
Calvin Burton
Theresa Marchetta
Nichole van Beek
Dan Sutherland
Joe Reihsen
Sterling Allen
Jonathan Marshall
Eric Beltz
Stephanie McMahon
Christine Kuper
Project 4 Gallery
Okay Mountain
In my work I look at the cultural mythologies that misrepresent nature and our relationship to it. I remake landscapes according to these fictions through both objects and painting, thereby adding to and revealing the fallacy of these representations. The sculptural tableaux I make as models for my paintings are theatrical, temporary situations where the real and imagined collapse into a space outlined by contradictory boundaries. Extraordinary outcomes are made feasible by the distortion of the everyday.
My most recent body of work focuses on the American myth of the seeker, traveling alone through untouched landscapes in search of a revelatory experience of the divine. Through the arrangement of objects, the absent character in my paintings actively imagines the sublime in nature with limited access to its vistas. Natural objects are combined with man-made materials to achieve a device, costume, or shelter that encourages the spiritual journey that they seek. These hybrids are jury-rigged, engineered intuitively, with a spirit that is half alchemist - half nomadic pragmatist. Reality is suspended as these ordinary objects enter the space of the painting. Light reaches across them as a transformative beam. Ranging from aurorae in polar night skies to bleaching white intensities these lights are palpable manifestations of the extraordinary. The 'special effects' illusionism which describes them is a flimsy reality against the factuality of the model. Their power to lure is nearly predatory. An omnipresent stare is a recurrent image. This omen warns the seeker, but the journey for meaning eclipses any vulnerability. These eyes signal the paranoia of being watched but also embody a sense of loss. Dripped paint and tear-drop shapes cry, as a lament for the inevitability of mortality. The seeker continues to wander toward the infinite, at the edge of the mundane, fashioning make-shift objects which orchestrate the miraculous.
Solo and Two Person Exhibitions
| 2010 |
RARE Gallery, New York, New York, February 2010. Okay Mountain, Austin, Texas, January 2010. |
2009 | Depth of Field: Christine Gray and Terri Weifenbach, Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, Alfred University, February 2009. |
| 2008 | Spring Thaw, Project 4 Gallery, Washington, D.C., April 2008. |
| 2007 | Mimeographic Spectrum, Okay Mountain, Austin, Texas, July 2007. |
| 2008 |
Particularities and Abstractions, Center for the Arts Gallery, Towson University, Towson, Maryland, October 2008. Ultrasonic International III: Elementary, My Dear Watson, Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica, California, September 2008. Almost Famous, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, Virginia, September 2008. Small Claims, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, Virginia, August 2008. Scope NY, Project 4 Booth, Lincoln Center, New York, New York, March 2008. 2, Project 4 Gallery, Washington, D.C., February 2008. New Work, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, Virginia, January 2008. |
| 2007 |
Aqua Art Fair, Project 4 Booth, Miami, Florida, December 2007. True Metier, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, California, September 2007, catalog with essay by Frederick Janke Compass 2007, University of California, Riverside, California, July 2007, catalog with essay by Ciara Ennis and Tyler Stallings High Five: Emerging Art in America, CW Headquarters, Burbank, California, July 2007, catalog with essay by David Pagel |
| 2006 |
GLAMFA Exhibition, California State University of Long Beach, Long Beach, California, August 2006 Bright Young Things, The Arts Fund Gallery, Santa Barbara, California, August 2006 |
| 2005 | 2005 Texas Biennial, Bolm Studios, Austin, Texas, March 2005, Catalog with essay by Dana Friis-Hansen. |
| 2004 | Truffle Shuffle, Camp Fig, Austin, Texas, October 2004 |
| 2008 |
Kriston Capps, "Spring Thaw" Exhibition essay, Project 4 Gallery. Jessica Dawson, "Christine Gray's Household Helpers", The Washington Post, April 25, 2008. Rachel Sitkin, "Spring Thaw Review", B-more Art, April 29, 2008. Maura Judkis, "Spring Thaw" Washington City Paper, April 30, 2008. |
| 2007 |
Tim Bowring, �Interview with Christine Gray,� Zero Hour, WRIR, Richmond, Virginia, November 20, 2007. Melissa Seley, �CAF Celebrates Tri-County Artists with True M�tier,� Santa Barbara Independent, September 20, 2007. Josef Woodard, �Call for a Calling,� Santa Barbara News Press, September 14-20, 2007. �Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum: An Artist�s True M�tier,� CASA Magazine, September 7, 2007. Salvador Castillo, �Christine Gray: Mimeographic Spectrum,� Austin Chronicle, July 20, 2007 |
| 2006 |
Theatre Survey: The Journal of the American Society for Theatre Research, Volume 47, Number 2, November 2006. (Cover image) Josef Woodard, "Hidden in Plain Sight." Santa Barbara News Press, September 1-7, 2006. |
| 2005 |
Rebecca S. Cohen, "Texas Biennial 2005." Artl!es, Spring 2005, No. 46. J R Compton, "The 2005 Texas Biennial: The Illusive 3rd Dimension." Dallas Arts Revue, March, 2005. Austin Chronicle, Volume 24, No. 30, March 25, 2005. Elaine Wolff, "Digital-induced angst and sensory overload". San Antonio Current, March, 10, 2005. |
| 2004 |
New American Paintings, Number 54, 2004. Anna Held Audette, editor, 100 Creative Drawing Ideas, 2004. |
| 2009 |
Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Artist Residency, Omaha, Nebraska, September-November 2009. 7 Below Arts Initiative, Artist Residency, Burlington, Vermont, June-July 2009. Visiting Artist, Alfred University, Alfred, New York, January 2009. |
| 2008 |
Faculty Research Grant, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia. |
| 2007 |
Faculty Research Grant, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia. Levitan Fellowship, The University of California Santa Barbara. Visiting Artist Lecture, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia. |
| 2006 |
Five Panelists, Five Perspectives, Women's Center, The University of California Santa Barbara. |
| 2005 |
Chancellor's Fellowship, The University of California Santa Barbara. Juror's Choice Award, Texas Biennial. |
| 2007 | MFA The University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA |
| 2003 | BFA The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas |
| 1998 | The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois |
Brief Bio
- Christine Gray was born in Fairfield, CA in 1980. She lives in San Jose, California.