Marking his tenth solo exhibition with the gallery, Chris Kahler presents a selection of recent paintings titled SHIFT. This vibrant new series of abstractions further expands upon the dynamic interplay between organic linear networks and hard-edge geometry that has come to characterize the artist’s unique work.
Within Kahler’s densely packed compositions, luminous forms appear to morph and proliferate within pulsating matrices of paint. Upon closer inspection, details emerge within the layered surfaces, dislocating forms and complicating spatial logic in the process. Manifesting conditions of profusion and flux, Kahler’s ecstatic abstractions provide a poignant, though ebullient, analogy for our precarious times. In conjunction with the exhibition, Bruno David Gallery will publish a catalogue of the artist’s work with an essay by David Olsen, an in-depth exhibition history and bibliography.
Chris Kahler is the Chair of the Department of Art + Design, Associate Director of the School of the Arts and Professor of Painting at Eastern Illinois University. He received his B.F.A. at Ohio Wesleyan University and M.F.A. from Northwestern University, Chicago, IL. Kahler has been the subject of numerous one-person exhibitions at venues including the Richard Ross Art Museum, Delaware, OH (2014); Anita Wooten Gallery, Valencia College, Orlando, FL (2011); John P. Weatherhead Gallery, University of Saint Francis, Fort Wayne, IN (2009); Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago, IL (2002).