Reflective concentrations
The very fact of the portrait’s allusion to an individual human being, actually existing outside the work, defines the function of the artwork in the world and constitutes that cause of its coming into being. This vital relationship between the portrait and its subject of representation directly reflects the social dimension of human life as a field of action among persons, with its own repertoire of signals and messages.
The large-scale portrait is of great interest, as it allows the viewer to interact with the work in different ways - not to see the whole head at once and assume that that's the most important aspect of my painting. I want the viewer to be drawn in close the image - to read the painting in different ways depending on where they are standing in the room. From a distance it is indistinguishable from a coherient, stylistically conventional portrait painting, owing much to the early twentieth-century Expressionists painters.
The instant photographic image is the base for a study or series of studies that can take hundreds of hours to complete. The objective is to find the personality that is often hidden behind the photographic mask – the reflective ‚“warts and all‘‘ realism, opposed to the airbrushed glossy, DIY-Digi-Insta-Filter-Selfie apps available today.
C H R I S T O P H E R L E A C H B.A. (Hons)
28.10.1972, Brighton U.K.
Mob: +43 (676) 9733673 E-mail: c.leach12a@gmail.com
Web: christopherleach-studio12a.net
AUSSTELLUNGEN
2015 Metropolitain Art Fair, Munich
2013 Metropolitain Art Fair, Gartenpalais Schönborn, Wien
2012 Metropolitain’s Floating Gallery, Stilwerk, Wien
2011 VAAF, le Meridian, Wien
2011 Metropolitain’s Floating Gallery, Stilwerk, Wien
2011 Gallerie am Schillerplatz, Wien
2011 VAAF (1st Vienna Accessable Art Fair), le Meridien, Wien
2011 Broadway Gallery, New York City
2011 Galerie St.Art, Wien
2010 Galerie Cal, Wien
2009 All You Need Hotel, Wien
2009 Himberg Gallery, Himberg
2008 “Illustration Now”. City Gallery, Split, Croatia.
2008 Himberg Galerie, Himberg
2008 Galerie Peyer, Wien
2007 Himberg Galerie, Himberg
2007 “Illuminated Silence“. Werkhaus Kallina, Wien
2006 “Super Seven “. Vienna Plaza, Wien
2006 “Figur“. Dorotheum, Wien (Auktion)
2006 “Venus und Adonis “. Galerie Himmelpforte, Wien
2005 “Figur “. Palais Kinsky, Wien
2004 “Female Dignity “. Schloss Ulmerfeld, Ulmerfeld
2003 “Lebenszeichen “. Stadtmuseum, St. Pölten
2002 “Das Nackte Grauen “. Stadtmuseum, St. Pölten
2002 “Original Copies “. Galerie Art und Weise, Wien
2001 “An der Schwelle “. Stadtmuseum, St. Pölten
2001 Design Austria, Adolf Loos Stadtpreis
(Jurymitglied - Kategorie Experimentelles Design)
2000 Galerie im Stadtmusem, Gloggnitz
1999 Hohe Wand, Wr. Neustadt
1998 Boatside Gallery, Brighton
1997 S.A.D. Gallery, Wolverhampton