Halsey McKay is thrilled to present Chris Duncan’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. The show takes its title from a phrase engraved into sundials throughout antiquity: Without the Sun I Fall Silent, or Sine Sole Sileo. This motto acknowledges the sun as source and instigator of shadows used to tell time and define moments. Historically, The “I” equates to the sundial, rendered useless during darker hours.

Recontextualized, “I” implicates the self, in this case a mask of Duncan’s face – a new step that introduces the figure to the artist’s work. In four new artworks Duncan continues to pose questions about time and its effects – the obvious, the nuanced and the unexpected. The installation pairs a ceramic mask with its sun exposed fabric counterpart, a stiched and exposed text based work of the sun dial motto, and a new gesture in his sun exposure experiments where Duncan has begun augmenting his compostions with solid shapes of sewn fabric.

Chris Duncan (b.1974, Perth Amboy, NJ) holds an MFA from Stanford University and a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts. Chris Duncan has held solo exhibitons with Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto, Canada; V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark; and Halsey McKay, New York, and East Hampton, NY. His work has been included in exhibitions at The Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; Museum Of Modern Art, NY, New York; De Rosa Preserve, Napa, CA; and The Marjorie Barrick Museum at the University of Las Vegas Nevada. Duncan’s work is held in the collections of the Museum Of Modern Art, New York, NY; SFMoMA, San Francisco, CA; The Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, MO; Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA and the Arsenal, Montreal, Canada. Outside of his studio practice he organizes events and runs a small artist book press and record label called Land and Sea with his wife Maria Otero. He currently lives and works in Oakland, California.