About Chris DeCourtChris is a visual artist born in Alexandria, Virginia. After attending Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia and having dabbled in some form of art making for most of his life, he relocated to New York City. There he attended a year long intensive program in filmmaking at the New York Film Academy. This lead him to the completion of a Bachelor of Science degree in Television and Film from St. John's University in Queens and more recently a masters degree in filmmaking production from Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida.
His interest with oil painting began to incubate while in New York and his personal visual expression through painting began to bloom. Firstly through the use of acrylics or watercolors and then eventually with oils and experiments with concealed mixed media such as cat hair, powdered marble and even torn half-completed crossword puzzle grids. His paintings are designations of large, colorful experiments of controlled texture and color in order to create a mood-scape through the depths of topographical-like grooves and ridges. Using a method of layer on, cut away, layer on and repeat, the painting is done primarily with palette knives and minimal selective brushwork. Each work is unique in the perception of bold color juxtaposed with integral movements and layers that form the entire map-like piece. This creates seemingly random but binding gestural features which are the ground floor of an examination for an understanding of personal and cultural semiotics. Increasingly, he uses more perceptually figurative representations to explore pragmatic principals in the form of line, contour and color, questioning the idea of the passage of time through the application and manipulation of mediums while pushing for a diverse but subjectively meaningful interpretation of his intent. |