ARTIST STATEMENT
There is subtle architectonic logic which pervades the forms I make. I think of this aesthetic as a sort of organic tectonic; a construction involving a language of natural forms. Botanical and geological forms seep into an organic/geometric matrix that seems to play out as a sort of Rorschach ink blot test. In this sense, my work is as much about triggering an active process of interpretation as it is about representing a definitive object. There is something compelling aboutthe seamless integration of disparate forms, textures and surfaces which are precisely delineated formally and yet defy a definitive content. This flow of form is at least partially due to my process of making, a technique I have developed in order to build form in the negative. A reductive approach, described simply, I dig a hole in the ground and fill it with clay. The holes I make are quite intricate in surface but none the less still holes. I speak of them being built because in this case, silt being removed from the hole is equivalent to building my object in the negative. The process is akin to drawing in the dark; the technique is much more about feel and imagination. In fact, it is only after excavation that the object is revealed as an object and not a cavity in the dirt.
Chris’s path has consistently gravitated towards and found redemption in “making,” whether in Architecture school at Tulane where his attraction for physical form was explored in the sanctioned realm of cardboard models, or in the sun drenched playground for architects in the Arizona desert known as Arcosanti, a place where the medium of silt, clay and concrete are the primary means of expression. Playing in the dirt, he seemed to find his medium of choice and let his activities range from the scale of ceramic houses as demonstrated by Nader Khalili at CalEarth in southern California to the hand held clay creations afforded and indulged upon at Paolo Soleri’s ceramic studio at the edge of the Sonoran. He later found a nurturing environment for these tendencies while earning his MFA at RISD and achieved breakthroughs working with clay and silt which led to his current body of work.

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