| Photographic images appropriated from various media outlets are the source for my work, which can be described as a hybrid between drawing and printmaking. I use carbon transfer templates as a way to filter the original photographic information to develop a new abstracted image. The works are created through this meticulous process, while keeping the original subject matter intact. The labor-intensive method of rendering the images creates a visual texture, and is formed through the methodical placement of repetitive marks. A moment occurs when the original (mechanically produced) image breaks down, and engages the viewer through its new hand-made qualities. | 
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Chris Oatey
Chris Oatey, Helms Ave. #4 of 8, 2008. Carbon on paper, 58 x 48 inches (464 x 48 inches installed). Courtesy of See Line Gallery.
Photographic images appropriated from various media outlets are the source for my work, which can be described as a hybrid between drawing and printmaking. I use carbon transfer templates as a way to filter the original photographic information to develop a new abstracted image. The works are created through this meticulous process, while keeping the original subject matter intact. The labor-intensive method of rendering the images creates a visual texture, and is formed through the methodical placement of repetitive marks. A moment occurs when the original (mechanically produced) image breaks down, and engages the viewer through its new hand-made qualities. To further separate the image from its source, I often re-use the carbon templates in an act that allows a new abstraction to materialize while retaining qualities of the original image.
In Wallpaper of Champions, sports imagery is used as subject matter toward a greater understanding of sports and entertainment as spectacle. Triumphant images of athletes are intertwined with those depicting crowds, investigating spectator-to-athlete relationships in the sporting arena. My interest here lies in the ways sports can become almost religious in nature, and can instill spectators with a sense of community. The wall installation for the show simulates our desire to be surrounded by images with which we can identify ourselves. Sport imagery is used as a catalyst to think about how we relate to the bombardment of visual information in our everyday lives.
Helms Ave. recreates one of the most familiar icons of Southern Californian communities. The palm tree acts as a sign of affluence, or a perceived and constructed one. These non-native species have become defining markers in our collective memory of the Southern Californian urban landscape. I think of this piece as a documentation of an everyday landscape. The work addresses the effect that our immediate surroundings have on our perception of landscape, both geographically and economically.
In recent work, I am focusing further on using the repetitive mark to investigate relationships of crowd dynamics and spectacle imagery from popular news sources. I am interested in creating a meditation of specific images that describe human interaction and experience. I aim to use the carbon template to regenerate representational imagery through a process of abstract repetition in order to create dynamic works that invite a prolonged reception.
