CHRIS LANGLOIS Another Place

“I most often paint large works of the landscape or ocean that envelope the viewer. I avoid the theme of place, preferring images that are empty of any persons and generally describe the space of landscape. My paintings are of somewhere but they could be anywhere. Sometimes my paintings are so empty of information all they describe is the subtle nuances of space and light in-between. I like to experiment with how we see, through distorted vision, be it blurriness, movement or obstruction. My paintings can be both real and unreal at the same time. My use of landscape is not to depict place, rather, a tool or vehicle to draw the viewers’ own relationship with place. My paintings generally are cinematic, empty and vague so as to engulf the viewer.

This exhibition is a continuation of that theme, of painting landscape and depicting the space and the effect it has on us, specifically exploring landscape through distortion, through photography and its limitations, and how obstructions in the field of view can twist and obscure vision.These paintings are of landscapes of Kosciuszko National Park viewed through glass and water from a window of a moving car. I was interested in painting these images as they allowed me to play with the real and unreal in the same image. They blur between the literal and abstract back and forth endlessly, at one point being an object and next a blob of pure tone and then back into an object.

Also included in this exhibition is a body of sketches painted outdoors, around Sydney and the Hunter Valley. It runs counter to my studio practice as they tend to be more specifically about place. The sketches are quick and intuitive.

I don’t try and incorporate any narative into my work. I would rather let the paintings be themselves. My process is to create a problem and then to try to resolve the problem that is created. I find painting difficult and where they are successful is where you can see the struggle to try and master a work. For me, good art is that, an exploration of their subject matter and medium, and their journey in resolving all of that.”
Chris Langlois 2011.