BY KAREN BOSSICK
A Montana artist who creates profoundly intricate monochrome landscapes via oil paintings on linen using the tiniest of paintbrushes will lead a walkthrough of his show at OCHI Gallery in Ketchum on Saturday.
James Chronister will discuss his optically dense mark-making at 5 p.m. Saturday, July 13, with an opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. OCHI Gallery is also showing the work of Andy Mister.
Chronister’s exhibition, titled “And we are green, greener than the hill, where flowers grow and the sun shines still,” marks Chronister’s debut solo presentation with the gallery. His work focuses on images of dense winter forests, close-ups of individual leaves and aerial images of flora.
He begins the process by photographing the environment surrounding his home in Missoula, Mont. He then digitally distorts contrast and focus before moving from the computer to canvas. There he meticulously recreates photographs by repeatedly applying and erasing black oil paint.
“Viewed up close, the paintings are constructed by a series of small, discrete marks: a binary system of data—like type on a page—that results in a surreal density of information,” observed painter Jake Longstretch. “Step back and the pictures cohere.”
Chronister who earned an MFA from the California College of the Arts at San Francisco and a BFA from the University of Montana-Missoula, has received several prestigious awards. His work has been exhibited as far away as the Circle Culture in Berlin, Germany, and is included in numerous public collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Berkeley Art Museum, Stanford Hospital and San Francisco International Airport.
The gallery also is showing New York-based Andy Mister’s paintings of cut flowers in vessels in an exhibition titled “Sonnets.” His paintings—love tributes to his family--are all based on real flower arrangements made by his wife and their two young children.
The kids choose the flowers at the local farmer’s market, then place them around the house in whatever vessels they can find, ranging from a jam jar to a small secondhand vase.
The exhibitions will run through Aug. 17 at OCHI Gallery, 119 Lewis St.