CHRIS CRITES

War. Always War.

August 24 to October 12, 2011

Ampersand is pleased to have Seattle painter Chris Crites back for a second solo show at the gallery. As with his previous exhibition, America, the paintings in War. Always War. are derived from photographic images & most feature his signature style of acrylic on paper bag.

Of the work he writes, “Our species is one of conflict. Human history is made up of records of conflicts & wars. For territory, for religion, for belief, for resources, for many, many reasons, mankind has always been able to do the most horrific things to its own people. Yet war is not restricted to our species alone; warfare has been seen among primates & ants. Is it just part of nature? I don’t have the answer, but war & the proliferation of images of warfare are subjects I have always wanted to examine with my work.

Several of the pieces in this show are images of Victims of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia between 1975 & 1979. Pol Pot (Big Brother Number 1) & other leaders instituted a policy of social engineering which resulted in genocide. This was a war by a people on its own people. It’s estimated that 1.39 million died as a result of these policies. Of those, as many as half were executions. The Khmer Rouge systematically photographed their victims before torturing & executing them.

War is obviously too immense a subject to cover with any one show, but I attempted to scratch the surface. In an age when the sheer number of war photographs nearly renders them meaningless, my hope is to provide another way of looking & thinking about images of warfare.”

Artist CV here.

© 2011

Chris Crites

ampersand

all rights reserved

Purchase work from the show here.

Purchase limited edition book, Mug Shots, here.