Inspired by eighteenth century British artists including Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, Chisholm’s paintings consist of historical images with a modern twist. Ranging from 18th-century British society portraits and genre scenes to 1970s vacation snapshots sourced from flea markets, Chisholm distorts traditional portraiture with interventions and various manipulations - such as injecting geometric abstraction, combining figures from different centuries, or even updating a noblewoman’s fashion with 1980s punk accents.

In Chisholm’s new body of work, the artist continues with his portrait/abstraction series, the original image being less visible than in works previous. Chisholm has developed a particular painterly language in the wake of his previous transcriptions of the society portraits. As if they were after-images of the historical works, where he has withdrawn the detailed processes of reproduction and left the residue of those practices to congeal into vaguely figurative abstractions.

As critic Jonathan Griffin pointed out, all of Chisholm’s work is caught in an on-going flux of making and unmaking. He seems almost incapable of stopping himself augmenting and paintings over his canvases. Some regress to near - total abstraction, while others find their former compositions buried by new forms. Influenced by visits to conservation departments where authorship and preservation are concerned, the body of works reveals the beauty of materiality and decay and opens up a dialogue of dislocated histories and ambiguous identity.

About the artist:

Ross Chisholm (b. 1977) lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions include Embassies, IBID Projects (2012), London, The Garden of Forking Paths, Marc Jancou, New York, NY and Grieder Contemporary, Zurich (2010). Recent group exhibitions include Pulsed (curated by Ross Chisholm and Simon Keenleyside), ASC Gallery, London, UK, The Library of Babel/ In and Out of Place, Projectspace 176, London, memories of the future, (curated by Laurent Grasso), Sean Kelly Gallery, New York and They Do Things Differently There, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (all 2010).

-Green Art Gallery

Image: © Ross Chisholm
Courtesy of Green Art Gallery