June 2024
INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION
Christian Rieben
Artist Statement
I am a painter. There are multiple threads that weave through my work, but they all start from a constructed fantastical world that I use as a venue for storytelling. Characters, places, and narratives are cousins of those that we encounter in our world, but they lie outside the parameters and fall between the categories that contain us. I start with a landscape, through which I introduce portraiture, figurative painting, abstraction, or a combination of these motifs; the subject itself can often flit in the spaces between ideas: there might be work that is about personal loss, but at the same time it is about ambition or contemporary politics. This inbetweenness is indicative, I believe, of the way we actually process our time in the world; we are influenced by myriad sources, all of them potentially powerful, and this includes sources from diverse visual languages – whether that is conventional realism, pop culture stylization, or something else entirely. In my experience, creativity happens when differences collide, exemplified by the surrealist Isidore Ducasse: ‘as beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table’. The unexpected, the strange and new can take us into wonderfully uncharted and rewarding territory. So, one thing I want viewers to get when looking at my work is that I'm trying to visually (and conceptually) synthesize things that aren’t necessarily analogous, but do end up coexisting in a diverse world. I don't always know what that looks like when I start, but the search for a natural-seeming synthesis is an integral component of the image’s construction. We are complex and subtle creatures with various experiences, thoughts, and feelings. These myriad phenomena are sometimes contradictory, but they are essential to our sense of self. For myself, to paraphrase James Baldwin, it was art that taught me that “the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive”. It is my hope that my art may connect people to ideas and situations outside of what they already know, but within their potential empathy. I cannot offer the correct answers to the world’s problems, but I hope I can ask the right questions.
INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION
Christian Rieben
Artist Statement
I am a painter. There are multiple threads that weave through my work, but they all start from a constructed fantastical world that I use as a venue for storytelling. Characters, places, and narratives are cousins of those that we encounter in our world, but they lie outside the parameters and fall between the categories that contain us. I start with a landscape, through which I introduce portraiture, figurative painting, abstraction, or a combination of these motifs; the subject itself can often flit in the spaces between ideas: there might be work that is about personal loss, but at the same time it is about ambition or contemporary politics. This inbetweenness is indicative, I believe, of the way we actually process our time in the world; we are influenced by myriad sources, all of them potentially powerful, and this includes sources from diverse visual languages – whether that is conventional realism, pop culture stylization, or something else entirely. In my experience, creativity happens when differences collide, exemplified by the surrealist Isidore Ducasse: ‘as beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table’. The unexpected, the strange and new can take us into wonderfully uncharted and rewarding territory. So, one thing I want viewers to get when looking at my work is that I'm trying to visually (and conceptually) synthesize things that aren’t necessarily analogous, but do end up coexisting in a diverse world. I don't always know what that looks like when I start, but the search for a natural-seeming synthesis is an integral component of the image’s construction. We are complex and subtle creatures with various experiences, thoughts, and feelings. These myriad phenomena are sometimes contradictory, but they are essential to our sense of self. For myself, to paraphrase James Baldwin, it was art that taught me that “the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive”. It is my hope that my art may connect people to ideas and situations outside of what they already know, but within their potential empathy. I cannot offer the correct answers to the world’s problems, but I hope I can ask the right questions.
A child of many travels, Rieben spent his life moving from place to place with his family. His father, a graphic designer, was “very creative and always supporting my creativity.” Rieben says. “My travels definitely helped shape who I am and what I paint.” While the artist doesn’t feature landmarks or actual places or buildings in his abstract work, his style has been inspired by the unique art he has seen through his young life.
Although he dabbled in drawing and sculpting in high school and college, painting is the preferred medium for Rebien. “For me, painting is difficult and rewarding.” It is clear to the viewer that there is a tremendous amount of time put into each painting and the attention to colors and tones is the very strong.