NYAB Event - Christopher Astley “Conglomerations: backfill, slag & scree”

Christopher Astley “Conglomerations: backfill, slag & scree”

Tracy Williams Ltd.

[Image: Christopher Astley "Conglomeration 9" (2015)]

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Tracy Williams Ltd. presents a suite of paintings by Christopher Astley, in his first solo exhibition with the gallery. Mostly known for his concrete-filled fabric sculptures, typically stacked in wall-like formations, these systems or patterning relate to and translate beautifully into his two-dimensional landscapes. This presentation does not depict a specific subject at an exact point in time; rather something more akin to a “Vonnegutian” landscape. The viewer has access to all time and space simultaneously and can meander through shifting permutations of that complete world.

A few large-scale works alongside more intimate sized panels, Astley employs a similar palette throughout, while the narrative found within each piece embodies its own ontological tensions between human civilization and natural landscape. Astley’s work hovers between abstraction and construction, space and time, creating an intriguing phenomenological synergy between two and three dimensions. His assembly of paintings delves into this unique lexicon, ensuing in something exquisitely enthralling and buoyantly consuming.

Born in 1965 in East Lansing, Michigan, Astley received his BGS degree from The University of Michigan. He currently lives and works in New York City. Astley’s work has been included in several exhibitions, such as at Sargent’s Daughters, New York, NY; Leo Koenig, New York, NY; Martos Gallery New York, NY; BravinLee, New York, NY; Salomon Contemporary, East Hampton, NY; Michael Steinberg Fine Arts, New York, NY; The Margulies Collection, Miami, FL; Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida; Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California; H&R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri; and the Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida. Astley’s work has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, Art and America, Interview Magazine and Hamptons Magazine, among others.