’ Chris in conversation at his Main & Terminal studio

Chris saw things differently. From our conversations, | heard that
"by the mid-seventies, | was disillusioned by this practice. The
conceptual art practice was not succeeding. The conceptual activi-
ties that were supposed to free art practice and change the muse-
um structure did not pull through. The loss of interest in this art
movement would lead to its subsequent failure." His involvement
in a family business of forming new types of eateries and success-
fully managing them also began in the latter part of the seventies
and took a more pronounced role through the next decade. So
much so that as Chris relates about the difficulty of balancing the
operation of a business with the development of an art practice,
his cellphone bleeps mid-sentence as a reminder: "well, there's
switches in the back, it's a bituva, y'know, yeah, and | think what
ya havta do is just hit it again a couple of times, maybe it'll, it'll
break off... the outside, yeah, just a little, not with anything
sharp, and that may just dissipate it, okay?" Sophie's Cosmic
Café's beer cooler was making gurgling noises. He then points
out it was only when he became a small partner in a different
type of restaurant in the eighties which was already operating
successfully that he could spend some time in the studio.
And spend a lot of time, he did. In the early eighties, he
prepared an exhibition involving contemporary Northwest Coast
artists, some of whom were his childhood friends. Chris pushed to
have the works of painting and printmaking made larger, "to
remove them from the curio,".in a way to monumentalize the
work. The market of that time did not recognize these works so
. the project failed, but eventually they did come to the forefront
as national museums later in the eighties could no longer ignore
contemporary Native art practice. Working with this kind of First
: Nations mythological and cultural content sparked Chris to reflect
on his own Greek "mythological entrapments."
Where previously Chris had employed collage to critique images
from the popular mass media, he now used this method to piece
together a series of elements of classical and contemporary myth:
a personal experimentation in the uncertain times of the Zeitgeist
painting of the eighties. Chris’ approach was to instead assemble
and collage from a library of images, photograph this large
ensemble, and then hand-colour the enlarged print to mark a
relation to the practice and content of painting. Greek myths
including that of Icarus occupied a central position in this period
of work dealing both in the realm of history and imagination to
which Chris pays great attention. While exhibiting this work in
Athens and Rome, Chris extended his research into photograph-
ing Athens. =

The balanced ability of operating
a business permitted Chris to
concentrate on his art practice.

Hera February 1985
hand-coloured photograph
157 x 112 cm

Chris in conversation at his Main & Terminal studio

Chris saw things differently. From our conversations, | heard that
“by the mid-seventies, | was disillusioned by this practice. The
conceptual art practice was not succeeding. The conceptual activi-
ties that were supposed to free art practice and change the muse-
um structure did not pull through. The loss of interest in this art
movement would lead to its subsequent failure.” His involvement
ina family business of forming new types of eateries and success-
fully managing them also began in the latter part of the seventies
and took a more pronounced role through the next decade. So
much so that as Chris relates about the difficulty of balancing the
operation of a business with the development of an art practice,
his cellphone bleeps mid-sentence as a reminder: "well, there's
switches in the back, it's a bituva, y'know, yeah, and | think what
ya havta do is just hit it again a couple of times, maybe it'l it'll
break off... the outside, yeah, just a little, not with anything
sharp, and that may just dissipate it, okay?" Sophie's Cosmic
Café’s beer cooler was making gurgling noises. He then points
out it was only when he became a small partner in a different
type of restaurant in the eighties which was already operating
successfully that he could spend some time in the studio.

And spend a lot of time, he did. In the early eighties, he
prepared an exhibition involving contemporary Northwest Coast
artists, some of whom were his childhood friends. Chris pushed to
have the works of painting and printmaking made larger, "to
remove them from the curio," in a way to monumentalize the
work. The market of that time did not recognize these works so
the project failed, but eventually they did come to the forefront
as national museums later in the eighties could no longer ignore
contemporary Native art practice. Working with this kind of First

Nations mythological and cultural content sparked Chris to reflect
‘on his own Greek “mythological entrapment."

Where previously Chris had employed collage to critique images
from the popular mass media, he now used this method to piece
together a series of elements of classical and contemporary myth:
a personal experimentation in the uncertain times of the Zeitgeist
painting of the eighties. Chris’ approach was to instead assemble
and collage from a library of images, photograph this large
ensemble, and then hand-colour the enlarged print to mark a
relation to the practice and content of painting. Greek myths
including that of Icarus occupied a central position in this period
of work dealing both in the realm of history and imagination to
which Chris pays great attention. While exhibiting this work in
Athens and Rome, Chris extended his research into photograph-
ing Athens.

The balanced ability of operating
a business permitted Chris to
concentrate on his art practice.

Hera February 1985
hand-coloured photograph

AE 157 x 112 cm

5 Digs