"To paint, or not to paint. That is the question." -Lucien Smith 

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Joe Garvey, Otis Houston Jr., Austin Lee, Maia Ruth Lee, Lucien Smith, Josh Smith and B Thom Stevenson

 

The artists bring unique perspectives on their practice beyond painting, and this show delves into the psychology behind these diverse approaches. Some view their chairs as an extension of their art, while others see them as separate design objects. Some chairs mirror their paintings, while others contrast.

 

Art As Chairs, a curatorial project founded by Joe Horner, examines why thousands of contemporary artists gravitate to chairs, a tradition shared by both the architect and the conceptual artist, similar to how every painter eventually interprets the still life or crucifixion. Chairs exist at two extremes—either as a commercial materialistic object or as an unsellable, impractical one—making them a perfect symbol for artists who seek to push past conventional boundaries.

 

The exhibition Paintings and Chairs reflects on why painting maintains the ultimate position in the artistic hierarchy and what motivates the painter to experiment in the realm of design and sculpture. Many artists move away from painting, feeling jaded, burned out, repetitive, and restricted by some of its arbitrary elements, which drives them to seek new forms of experimentation before returning to painting. These shifts aren't always reactions to painting itself but rather reflections of the artist's evolving interests or intuitions. Ultimately, the artist should have the opportunity to explore any kind of work independently.

 

In the exhibition, the chair's placement in front of the painting underscores the broader scope of each artist's practice. In this case, the debate over whether a chair is art or design might be a distracting philosophical loop, but the fact that all of these chairs are made by painters validates them as artworks in a way a designer would have a harder time convincing a skeptical audience. This show is about how each painter navigates the restrictions of our capitalist world and finds ways to secure and justify their own sense of freedom.

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