Chris Gwaltney has been painting for more than 20 years. His lush abstracted oils are filled with courageous color and one is drawn to their sensuous surface experimentation. Gwaltney's influences hail strongly from the San Francisco figurative group and include both sculptors and painters. Nathan Olivera, Manual Neri, Stephen de Stabler, Joan Brown, Grace Hartigan, Richard Diebenkorn, Joan Mitchell and Wolf Kahn are some of his influences. He is drawn to work that shows evidence of struggle and argument.

Artist Statement:

On Content...
"I am not interested in making narrative work with overt content. The content that exists in my paintings exists through the perception of the formal elements and their relationshiop to each other. The rhythmic contrast between elements gives the work content. The act itself is content enough. Artists that use painting, sculpture or collage in a plastic physical way are interesting to me. Why I like something is most often because I find it beautiful. Content comes from the viewer. The painting either works or it doesn't.

On Process...
I like to leave some element from the start of the work in the final image . . . a color, line or shape that shows the ruins of the first idea. I find a high degree of "finish" in my paintings too final.

On Subject Matter...
The figure, it interests me more than chairs or language at the moment.