Christine Gray at Project 4

CHRISTINE GRAY

SPRING THAW
Through May 24, 2008

CLOSING RECEPTION & ARTIST TALK:
Saturday, May 17 - 3:00pm

Project 4
903 U Street NW
Washington DC 20001
tel: 202 232 4340 fax: 202 232 4341

Christine Gray paints landscapes in oil based on models she has created from common craft materials. The paintings represent this translation from the constructed environment to illusionistic painting, and become fantastically abstracted scenes based on objects domestic and kitsch.

While gestural marks and rich textures compose much of these surreal landscapes, Gray also interposes areas where her source materials are highly rendered. This brings both a compelling balance and an irony to the picture plane. Gray sees this work as speaking to the dysfunction of the "Martha Stewart" system in which individuals imitate models in craft magazines. The work utilizes "failed geometry, failed architecture, and failed illusionism".

Gray elaborates:
"I represent landscape through several degrees of mediation (first through building modest micro-sculptures, then through painting.) This removal from the real reflects what I find to be a prevalent contemporary anxiety toward not only so-called 'nature' but also toward 'the real' itself."

Christine Gray received an MFA from The University of California Santa Barbara, California in 2007 and a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin. She has exhibited in group shows in California and Texas. She currently teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University.

UPCOMING EXHIBITION

The Sublime Landscape
May 31-July 19, 2008
Opening Recepton: Saturday, May 31 6:00-8:30pm

The expansiveness of humanity’s surrounding landscape has been an age-old captivation. For the summer of 2008, Project 4 will be exhibiting a group show based on interpretations of the Sublime Landscape. Works in the exhibition explore historical issues such as Manifest Destiny as well as contemporary one's such as the increased amount of artifice and development now transforming our landscape, versus the diminishing open land that once defined it.

To display natural scenes of grandeur and vastness connotes broad philosophical questions of existence and romantic ideals. Many contemporary artists choose to depart from this traditional model and focus on trajectories of modern culture which may include the reduction of openness or the rise of new sources of awe. As at one time the depiction of our landscape expressed a purity and idealism, it now addresses the mediations and anxieties present in our contemporary experience.

In the exploration of our landscape, whether seeking new perspectives, personal connections or the Sublime itself, what we take possession of in this vastness and how it’s portrayed is continually expressive of the culture from where the acquisition occurs. Each artist in this exhibition takes ownership of a piece of this broad landscape, which has long served as a metaphor of the individual and society and will continue to bring forth new insights as it is constantly revisited.