Artist Statement
Chris Hood (b. 1984, Atlanta, GA) plays directly with the picture plane, teasing the very notion of 'surface.' In his paintings, Hood aims to describe an experience where the physical and the virtual fuse and sit in a third, indeterminate space. Subsumed, stained, and bound by the surface of the painting, he often uses vernacular sources and humor to point to the tension in this uneasy experience. The interplay between characters amongst the layers of paint also activates an unexpected response in the sometimes surreal, or psychedelic, painterly joining of perception, imagery and color. In an enigmatic blend between clear figuration and errant abstraction, Hood creates a world within his set physical and material limitations.
