Pontone Gallery is proud to present ‘Odyssey’, a new suite of paintings by Chris Rivers. His signature-style is much in evidence, typified by emphatically gestural handling, a sumptuous colour palette and a dramatic evocation of pictorial space.
The pictures are divided into two subsidiary themes: ‘Angels are Astronauts’ and ‘Sleeping Fairies and Savage Unicorns’. There are also some closely-related, supporting works.
Each ‘Angels are Astronauts’ picture references a particular planet of the solar system, as well as the Sun. The scenes are swirling vortices of turbid colour, allusive to the popularly-perceived characteristics of each subject: for example, Mars, Jupiter and the Sun are hot-hued, Earth watery and Mercury darkly fluid. Small figures in spacesuits tumble through vaporous skeins and veils of paint. These are interstellar landscapes, fantasy worlds, which read as surreal collisions between the sci-fi images of Kubrick’s ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’ and Monet’s lily ponds.
