Black Portrait Series:
Family Photos
2020 - Present

Visual exploration of my relationship to blackness and maleness during a time when racial labels were changing from negro to black

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This series is anchored by a few concepts:

Identity (the qualities, beliefs, personality, looks, and/or expressions that define how we see ourselves and the way others see us)

Culture (the way of life of a group of people)How culture shapes and informs a person’s identity

How culture and identity change over time

Wayne Thiebaud River Bend Farms oil on panel 11" x 14" Click to View Image

Chris Christion Chris Play Acrylic on Canvas 2024 Click to View Image

Chris Christion Grandmother Lola Acrylic on Canvas 2021 30" x 40" Click to View Image

Wayne Thiebaud River Bend Farms oil on panel 11" x 14" Click to View Image

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Influences:

Working with a richer and brightened color pallet influenced by nature, theater/ film lighting, and artistic styles developed in Northern California like those of Wayne Thiebaud and his former student Fritz Scholder. I apply these influences to familial portraiture using a distinctive range of complementary colors. The variety and complexity of color reflect the diversity of African American skin tones and features.

Black Portrait Series:
Homes & Churches
2020 - Present

My father was a paster so many of homes I grew up in were church parsonags (dwellings owned by a church and given to their minister to live).

These paintings are little portraits of the homes and churches my family served while growing up

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Some important references:

In 2016 the project Next Rembrandt development team analyzed about 346 paintings of the famous artist. They created an algorithm that can accurately replicate the style of Rembrandt as a 3D print. The team decided on their algorithm:1. a portrait of a white man with facial hair2. aged 30-40 years,3. in a black dress4. with a collar and a hat

Images courtesy of https:// www.nextrembrandt.com The Next Rembrandt is a collaboration between: ING / Microsoft / TU Delft / Mauritshuis / Rembrandthuis

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“It is worth remembering that when you look at old paintings you are looking through the eyes of men, by and large… The art of, say, the Dutch golden age gives the powerful sense that we are spying on a real-world: but we are spying with male eyes, except for those exceptional women who defied their culture”

- Jonathan Jones, Men, women and the art of exclusion, The Guardian, published on Fri 27 May 2011

Black Portrait Series:

Objects

My wife and I love vintage picks below are some paintings based on our combs and some reference images from our collection of picks.