Chris Rivers: Odyssey
I tend to like art that has no up. But not all abstracts are equal, and I can’t always explain what makes me stop and stare, or why I’ll walk right by.
There’s also no up in space. That simple fact, efficiently illustrated by the inclusion of a tiny lone astronaut floating in the middle of Chris Rivers’ giant, almost 2-metre square abstracts, was enough to ‘ground’ my focus. Pun intended.
On their own these large works could be a hazy Monet pond or microscopic scenery in a Petri dish.
The brushwork is skilled and the colours intense, but as an abstract I’m not so sure I’d have given them a second look.
Arguably, you could put anything in the middle of an abstract to try to give it meaning. It still might not make the work work. A point proven by the artist’s series ‘Sleeping Fairies and Savage Unicorns’. Essentially the same as ‘Angels are Astronauts’ except with a more traditional artistic symbol: cherubs. They were nice, but they didn’t do it for me.
The astronauts, however, were unexpected and intriguing. Who are they? Where is their ship? Are they falling though atmospheric clouds or floating in gaseous nebulae?
And, of course, which way is up?
The works were named and inspired by the planets in our solar system, but anyone other than the artist would be hard pressed to guess which was which without the labels, which I didn’t read. I was too engrossed by the imagery of these imagined worlds that @ChrisRiversArt made me daydream about exploring.
@PontoneGallery until 30 Jan
Visit Pontone Gallery or this link for more info about Chris Rivers.