I’ll have new work showing at the upcoming San Francisco Art Fair with the Billis Williams Gallery from April 25 – 28.
Last year, I had a few bird ‘ s-eye view paintings of typewriters at the fair, so this year, I returned with a few more.
I am now working on a very large 60-inch x 40-inch complex commission. It will take me a long time and I’m excited to share it once I’ve worked past the difficult first few layers of paint.
Last month, I visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and saw an exhibition that displayed numerous Dutch paintings from the 17th century. They’re always so striking with the details, and the very dark settings make the subjects emerge from the depths. So, on my return, I decided to keep experimenting with my subject and paint this Corona No.3 typewriter. My technique has always been an adapted indirect Dutch master’s style approach, but I settled on a high-key bright setting for my subjects. Sometimes, it’s nice to step out of your comfort zone and take a trip back in time. This painting is currently showing in New York City at the George Billis Gallery.
I just finished this fifth painting in my Memory: Facts and Fallacies series. It’s on the way to New York to be shown at the George Billis Gallery.
I have returned from a whirlwind trip to Los Angeles to attend the opening reception of my current solo exhibition at the Billis Williams Gallery.
I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where I saw an exhibition called “The World Made Wonderous,” showcasing 17th-century Dutch collections, including many paintings from which I draw direct influence. I won’t get too nerdy here, but I was entirely in my element and wandered through the gallery twice to absorb as much as possible.
Then, it was off to the gallery for the reception, where I met and talked with artists, collectors, and curious gallerygoers. The conversations I have during the receptions are always so encouraging. The best part is connecting with Tressa Williams, principal director of the gallery, who has shown my work for thirteen years. The key to any artist’s success is having a team of enthusiastic people who share your work with the world — that is precisely what Tressa does.
Several years ago, I painted a small series of “tsundoku” paintings. You can read about them here.
I am including a few new piles of unread books in my upcoming Los Angeles exhibition at the Billis Williams Gallery.
Now that I fully have a phone-brain and a mild dopamine-scrolling addiction, I find it more and more difficult to read books the way I used to. But I am up for the challenge and work my best to set aside time to read like it’s the olden times.
The exhibition of new paintings opens on Saturday, February 24th. I will be at the reception from 4pm–7pm that day.
These two pieces will be part of my upcoming exhibition in Los Angeles at the Billis Williams Gallery, opening on February 24th.
My last exhibition in New York involved many large paintings, so this time around, I decided to work on a slightly smaller group of canvases.
Also, the black. Let’s talk about it. Years and years ago, I regularly set my work on deep black ground. I gradually phased that out and worked exclusively on white — or near-white grounds. In the past few years, I have done smaller paintings in black; it revealed my subject in a fresh and new way. So, above is the first of a slightly larger painting of what will become a new direction for my work.
Below, we have a neutral grey approach. Another way to make the subjects pop right off of the canvas.
At the end of February, we will see the opening of an exhibition of my latest paintings in Los Angeles at the Billis Williams Gallery. I have been working on tiny details for months now.
The subjects will be familiar to anyone who has seen my work before. Perhaps this time, you will catch new groupings of subjects with more contrast and depth in the lighting.
In a word, the theme of this body of work would be Memory.
I will share more of the new paintings in the coming weeks.
Here it is! The 2024 edition of Itoya’s calendar featuring my work is sold exclusively in Itoya’s stores in Japan. I think the 2024 calendar is particularly good, with a selection of 12 paintings that I am very proud of.
New work has just arrived in Miami for the upcoming art fair season. I sent two new bubble gum paintings to be shown with the George Billis Gallery. The Red Dot Fair runs from December 6–10.
Who doesn’t love a big colourful bubblegum machine?
And so again, I have entered the quiet, busy painting phase as I work toward an upcoming exhibition in Los Angeles for late February 2024.
I am so happy to share the news that one of my paintings is on the cover of American Art Collector magazine’s October 2023 issue. Check out the feature below, where I talk about the recent work for my upcoming exhibition in New York City.
Over years of collecting, Christopher Stott has amassed roughly 100 clocks, 25 typewriters and 80 cameras, not to mention an array of colorful trunks and countless books. These, and a handful of other carefully vetted objects like old telephones and gumball machines, are the building blocks of his crisp still lifes.
These aren’t your run of the mill objects— some of his cameras are 120 years old, and Stott doesn’t collect or paint anything made after 1960.
“I’m lucky my wife sees value in everything I collect,” says Stott. “But every so often I’ll come home with a really expensive typewriter, and I’ll get a look like, ‘I hope that doesn’t sit around for three years before you paint it.’”
Rather than exude and evoke nostalgia for yesteryear, Stott’s pieces are matter of fact and straightforward—in positioning and tone. They are almost devoid of emotion, that is, until you start reading between their neat, orderly lines.
“If someone feels a sense of nostalgia that’s fine…I think it’s more a sense of melancholy,” Stott says, adding that the old cameras would often still have film in them. “It was so old it couldn’t be developed, but I would always think of who was using it and what they were doing and the circumstances of why the film was left inside the camera.”
On the surface, the objects are simply beautiful forms. There is something satisfying and soothing in the symmetrical compositions, and the way the shapes fit together—the square trunks and camera cases offset by the circular faces of the clocks and camera lenses—into a visually pleasing arrangement of color, order and form.
The compositions and the act of painting them have a calming effect on the artist as well.
“Living in a world of chaos—from family life and beyond—it seems you can’t control anything,” says Stott. “In my painting practice, I can find a sense of control. I can create a sense of order and tidiness in my paintings. Painting slowly and intentionally is a form of meditation. It’s a calm place that I can actually exist in and when someone looks at my paintings I think they can get that sense of order and calmness as well.”
Stott often works on several pieces at once, allowing the canvases to strike up a dialogue. For instance, Wishing Well and 1938 Royal KHM Typewriter ended up representing different stages of life. The former has a glass full of colored pencils and primary school readers from the 1930s and ’40s; while the latter, with a typewriter and standard graphite pencils, has a more serious, adult feel.
At 40-by-30 inches, the works are slightly larger than life. Although he has been experimenting with aerial views, they are typically presented head-on, on a white shelf under high, bright light, suggestive of a product display. “I’m marrying the old traditions and techniques of the Dutch Masters with a modern advertising aesthetic,” he explains.
Stott’s renderings are a way of honoring these objects and the stories, like secrets, they contain. It extends beyond their appearance into the other sensory qualities associated with them—the musty smell of old books, the sound of a ticking clock, the punch of a typewriter key, the click of a camera, pencil on paper.
“That’s what I want people to see—there’s actually a life to these things,” he says. “[We’re so fixated on the latest technology] we’ve become almost completely blind to the stepping stones that got us here. I think the initial invention is the real breakthrough and then there’s everything that came after.”
