Christopher SHELTON
2 / / + 3 ) ( ( = ? !
29 June - 22 July 2017
29 June - 22 July 2017
Opening drinks with the artist:
Saturday, July 1, 2 - 4 pm
Please join us for a floortalk with the artist
on Saturday, July 8, 2 - 3 pm
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The Equation … 2 / / + 3 ) ( ( = ? !
Two straight then three curved lines was to be the starting point for each work. Then fall back on my formal training acquired over the last fifty odd years. This knowledge and experience of balancing elements and principals should result in paintings that are far removed from the previous style and substance of past exhibitions. From years of producing works which equate to ART = LIFE. I have reversed the process thus enabling the spectator to form their own conclusion of how they see their life, maybe through my visual expression. I have often been amazed what people interpret to be the message in my previous figurative, landscape and political paintings. This time the viewer can completely form their own conclusion as to what they are seeing. Don’t get me wrong these visual compositions of artistic elements are saying something but not necessarily what others are seeing. Robert Motherwell the noted Abstract Expressionist took a long time to seep into my artistic practice. But now his “automatism” has happily finally taken over. That does not mean I will stop turning out the occasional political statement. Brett Whiteley always impressed me with his risk taking within his works. A controversial figure study in a shower setting was such an example. A fully developed surface is splashed with a stream of “shower water” that risks enveloping the existing image. He cuts the edge with a bit of rag then steps back to view the result of this energetic conclusion to his painting. It was a risk! Now it is my turn to take that level of risk. Where does this journey go? Maybe it goes back to the white canvas with the minimal hint of various artistic elements settling on a well-considered composition. I will set problems for the spectator to involve themselves in and solve. Give it a name! Christopher Shelton, 2017. |
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CHRISTOPHER SHELTON
Curriculum Vitae
Born in Australia 1948. Lives and works in Melbourne.
Shelton has always painted since growing up on a dairy farm in the country. He went to Art School, Melbourne University, and became a Secondary College Arts and Technology teacher. This was followed by a five-year term of Lecturing in Teaching Methodology to under-graduate art teachers. He went back to the classroom in 1982 to just teach and aspire to run the best art department in the state of Victoria.
Since 1989 he has created and produced 13 large one man exhibitions that loosely follow his creed. Art = Life.
When not wrestling with the political foibles and complexities of those who think they know what is best for all of us, he returns to the sweet, colourful and curvaceous things we all need: food, flowers and those underlying female forms within the landscapes he grew up in. His most recent exhibition marks a major directional change as to what constitutes the life within his art.
Solo Exhibitions
2017 The Equation … 2 / / + 3 ) ( ( = ? !, Quadrant Gallery
2016 Sea Shapes by the Sea Shore, Tacit Contemporary
2015 Cast, Tacit Contemporary, Melbourne
2015 Featured Artist, Tussock Upstairs Gallery
2013 Hard Granite Soft Rock, Tacit Contemporary
2011 Just a painter now, Manningham Gallery
2011 Together in Harmony, Korean Cultural Centre Gallery, Seoul
2007 Growing Grumpy Disgracefully, Manningham Gallery
2004 Trees Travel and Other Things, Manningham Gallery
2000 The Mountains, Chiara Goya Gallery
1998 Fugurescape 98, Manningham Gallery
1997 Falling Down, Manningham Gallery
1993 Directions Where?, Doncastr Council Gallery
1992 Kakadu to Cairo, Doncaster Council Gallery
1989 Paintings and Drawings, Doncaster Council Gallery
