Chris Oh (born 1982, Portland, OR) is an American painter. Based in New York, his work incorporates found objects and personal belongings with appropriated Northern Renaissance, Flemish, and various European Old Masters. His practice examines the continued presence and reinterpretation of historical symbols from the 15th and 16th century within contemporary visual culture and natural materials, including souvenirs, home decor, sports paraphernalia, books, mirrors, puzzles, shells, crystals, petrified wood, and more. Many of his solo exhibitions are presented as site-specific installations.
Early life and education Oh was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. The artist graduated from School of Visual Arts, New York in 2004 with a BFA.
Career Before focusing on his own studio practice, he worked in a range of creative jobs, including vintage poster restoration and artist studios. His early work included photorealistic painting, portraits, and imagery drawn from science fiction, mythology, and fantasy.
In 2016, Oh presented Plays, his first solo exhibition at Fortnight Institute in New York. The exhibition included painted found objects, domestic materials, and works based on art historical sources, such as appropriating Leonardo da Vinci's, "The Head of the Virgin in Three-Quarter View Facing Right" (1510–13) onto an IKEA dish towel. Around this period, Oh began to move away from traditional canvas supports, using towels, bags, shells, wood, mirrors, and other found materials as surfaces for painting.
Oh's later work has frequently drawn from Renaissance and Northern Renaissance art, including sources by Rogier van der Weyden, Sandro Botticelli, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and Jan van Eyck. His exhibitions have included Landscapes at Fortnight Institute, a solo presentation with Fortnight Institute at Independent, and Passage at Capsule Shanghai. His work has also been shown in group exhibitions, including As Above, So Below at The FLAG Art Foundation.
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