"My works tend to fluctuate between the poles of abstraction and figuration: the truth of the paint film and the illusion of the image. By rendering form from abstraction, the image grows into a chimera of grotesqueries, a self-portrait of sorts in many forms. Recently, I've been practicing this process within the conventions of portraiture and still-life. These conventions tend to express and reveal notions of personal and collective identity. By rendering form from abstraction within the context of portraiture and still-life, the viewer/sitter dynamic is destabilized and we begin to see personal identity in a new visual context. In a time when we are constantly prodded with fearful messages, suggestions of immanent terror and visceral horror, I feel compelled to contemplate mortality and find peace and consolation in the real beauty of decay and impermanence. I feel this is the only way to know peace and truth."
"Definitely. I was drawing at a very early age. I remember drawing imaginary animals with the short pencils and small pieces of paper stored on the back of the church pews. I was really drawn to field guides and spent a lot of time in nature. I think that was really important.
I went to Regis University, a small Jesuit liberal arts college in Denver, CO, where I received a BA with and emphasis in art and later a Master’s of Nonprofit Management. The Jesuit education is a great thing; very well-rounded and rigorous with an emphasis on service."
"I think my first favorites were comic book artists like Todd McFarlane. Around that same time I discovered HR Giger via the Aliens movie. After that I discovered the artists of the early surrealist movement. I have so many favorite artists nowadays: Nicole Duennebier, Ryan Riss, Judy Pfaff, Jenny Morgan, Barnaby Furnas, Skinner, Erik Parker, Judy Fox, Kenny Scharf, Ryan Schneider, Amir Fallah, Martin Wittfooth, Gregory Jacobsen, Sinisa Kukec, Liz Craft, Wayne White, Ryan Travis Christian, Seamus Conley, Fulvio di Piazza, Mark Dean Veca, Tomoe Gokita, Robin Williams, Barnaby Whitfield, Julie Heffernan, Nicola Verlato, David Altmejd, Robert Hardgrave, Kim Keever, Aaron Johnson, Brendan Danielsson, Wangechi Mutu jeez, so many, I could go on and on. I am attracted to grotesque, colorful, spectacular, and technically ambitious work that is more emotional than intellectual."
"I’ve always been fascinated with anatomy and physiology as well as biology and other natural sciences. However, i generally don’t work from sketches or images, but rather from abstraction. I like to create a kind of mess of an underpainting, a primordial soup of paint and information that i can see things in and pull form from. A lot of the time, this results in bio-morphic images and sometimes representational images. I have recently been utilizing this technique within the language of portraiture, creating a portrait without a sitter. The basic elements that make a painting a portrait are the geometric language of the stable pyramid, centric oval and rectangle."
"I have spent a lot of time visually dissecting the old masters works, particularly dutch golden age painter’s use of chiaroscuro. I guess caravaggio would have to be included in there too. I have learned some basic principles from studying these paintings such as complementary color under paintings and glazing. Also, I have learned to be disciplined enough to always consider the light when moving forward with the painting. Everything is affected by the light source - from start to finish the light source is what pulls form from abstraction."
"In my work, whether stone and oil, metal and wood, or cardboard and papier-mâché alchemy and automatism are linked together in the cognitive creative process. Intention becomes line, line becomes shape, shape becomes form, and form becomes content. In my work I find myself either suppressing or indulging of my own desire to associate personal narrative to the raw visual information inherent in the material and process. Construction, destruction and reconstruction are symbiotic elements in the creative process allowing the image to fluctuate between abstraction and representation, truth and illusion, personal and archetypal."
"I was pretty introverted as a kid and the sketchbook was always a great escape, especially when family life was in it’s more turbulent phases. The sketchbook also served me well as a first line of defense in school too- somehow it always earned me some cred to would-be aggressors, haha. Didn’t always work but saved my ass a few times."
CHRISTIAN REX VAN MINNEN
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