A CURATED PLACE

IDOLATRY

Chris De La Motte

Opening night: Friday, 10th May. 6pm - 8pm
On view: 10th - 25th May

de la Motte’s current series is a continuation of painting practices and ideas occasioned in his recent work. Using baroque painting techniques, figurations and idols then updating them with modern synthetic materials and graphic application. However this series, rather than bringing compositions and idols from the past and updating them into the contemporary painting landscape, neo classical painting is deployed on contemporary subjects framed with titles that echo the past, basically flipping the script. The fluorescent motif as well as being indicative of the modernist rupture of classical painting, becomes the contemporary subject itself. Taking a somewhat more conceptual approach, these paintings are interested in the idolatry of identity. The huge emphasis and importance of identity in the contemporary world is in a bind with the inability to readily define oneself, questioning what the contemporary subject looks like, and is. The fluorescent green figures are at once a vibrant excess and a total reductive flatness. While still adhering to classical composition, colour and light distribution the paintings are a site primarily for aesthetic appreciation, but also a mirror for our contemporary moment viewed through the eyes and idolatries of the past.

Chris de la Motte is a figurative painter working out of Sydney, Australia. Studied a BVA from Sydney College of Art (Sydney University) 2015-2019, majoring in painting. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at Peirmarq* gallery in 2023 (AUS), and currently showing in a group exhibition with Myartisreal (US). His work has appeared in multiple group shows, featured on global online platforms and in Australian art publications, most recently a feature in Art Edit magazine (2023).

Please join us for the opening night reception of our next exhibition, the wonderfully talented Chris' latest solo exhibition ''IDOLATRY'

To RSVP or request a pre show catalogue, please email us at info@wester.gallery