Still & Still Moving
December 15, 2007 – January 26, 2008
Reception for the Artists: Saturday, December 15, 6 – 9pm
Los Angeles, CA—Sam Lee Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition entitled Still & Still Moving by multidisciplinary, Brooklyn-based artist Chris Doyle. The exhibition opens December 15, 2007 and closes January 26, 2008; the gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday, December 15, 6 – 9 p.m.
Still & Still Moving — the show’s title borrowed from a line in T.S. Elliot’s epic poem, Four Quartets — features five, large-scale watercolors and a pair of videos of individual unmade beds from different hotel stays. For Doyle, the hotel room is an extension of his studio, making the bed — a place of passion and a port of refuge — his focus for lyrical and philosophical investigations.
Each of the slightly larger-than-life sized watercolors — measuring approximately 47 by 68 inches — depicts a bed that has been occupied at one point or another; each image displays dramatic variations of color, chiaroscuro and drapery, reminiscent of those employed in old master paintings. Each watercolor puts the viewer at the edge of the bed; both a seductive and eerie place to be. The videos — two stop-motion animations of an unmade bed from a different hotel stay — complement the watercolor still lifes; with each advancing frame layered upon the next, the sheets are constantly altered and shaped, culminating in an introspective, sometimes erotic, and often humorous, comment about the passage of time and an undeniable presence.
For many years, Doyle has been quite interested in exploring the relationship between the individual gestures that make up the collective whole; his work investigates “the way an image or an action is both itself, a particle, and has a place in a larger wave.” Each work, like a snapshot of any single moment of a day, is a metaphorical portrait of relationships and of comfort during our current political climate. Seen together, each piece is like a crescendo, an amalgamation of parts that contribute to a spiritual and transcendental experience of the whole.
Doyle currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His most recent project includes a new public art video installation commissioned for the Sprint Arena in Kansas City. Doyle’s work has been shown at The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Queens Museum of Art, P.S. 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, and as part of the New York Video Festival at Lincoln Center; his work has also been exhibited internationally in Germany, Croatia, and The Czech Republic. His major public projects include LEAP, presented by Creative Time, Commutable, presented by The Public Art Fund and We Will Again Be Optimists, presented by Wall Street Rising, and Brooklyn Eagle at The Brooklyn Academy of Music. The artist’s work has been supported by grants from New York Foundation for the Arts, NYSCA, and the Creative Capital Foundation.
Digital images are available for press purposes. Please email (info@samleegallery.com) for reproduction requests.
Sam Lee Gallery is located at 990 N. Hill Street #190, Los Angeles, CA 90012, Phone 323-227-0275, Facsimile 323-227-0256. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 12 to 6 pm. For detailed information, please visit the gallery’s website, www.samleegallery.com.