Chittock - Artist

Description

Michael Chittock's paintings are expressions of his fascination with the human animal in the society of the spectacle. His work explores the ever-evolving relationship that we have to our social, cultural and political contexts and how these produce the ideas we hold about ourselves. Friends, family and other relationships are the primary sites he works with in his paintings about the complexities of human communications. We are bombarded constantly by images, texts, and messages of all sorts that direct us to conform to consumer society's norms, and yet Chittock believes we have the power to discern a core truth about our nature- that we desire not only intimacy with other human beings, but with some spiritual source that produces meaning in our lives. Chittock sees the role of the artist as a processing and filtering machine, and his works reveal this in the disjunctive nature of many of his painting's often narrative passages where language, images, and symbols mix together. Viewers are invited to make their own meanings out of this information, making the act of viewing his works a site for transformation as we remember our own ways of relating to others. Chittock represents the evolving, changing, and growing sense we have about our place in the world. As he puts it: "We are an incredible species and can learn from our mistakes. We have a wonderful potential for advancement even though there are so many ugly things that can be attributed to us. When I stand in front of a canvas it opens up the wonderful possibilities of representing the human with our madness, sadness, excitements, joy and ugliness." Chittock's paintings are markers of time and place. When working with a specific subject in one of his series, Chittock views his process as freezing moments from memory that would otherwise disappear in the fleeting movement of time. He is never without his sketch book and often marks down his impressions in order to refer to them later in his studio. He also uses photos and his own memories as sources for his work. To him, the enjoyment of painting is in representing life's journey, either in narrative moments with the figure, or in the subtle changes of light in the spaces of his landscapes. Chittock grew up in the wild forests of northeastern California, and recalls the excitement of journeying down paths not yet taken, often revealing new light, new vistas, changing colors on the mountains?all this finds a parallel in his artistic process. From dense canvases of dark luscious color to more simplified images drawn monochromatically in paint, Chittock?s works always evoke some shared notion of memory in the viewer, as his works reveal the most basic human truths of our need to connect and create meaning out of the stories of our lives.

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