CHC Gallery is proud to announce our Summer Group Show, Compare|Contrast, an exhibition featuring five artists with paintings reflective of different periods in each of their careers. The body of work is illustrative of the ever-changing environment. Consequently, paintings from a single artist possess extremely different styles — a progression.

Discouraged by an over reliance on confrontational materials and theoretical method, Carol Hu, Chas Harold and Marks exemplify key elements of Abstract Expressionism with their color usage, composition, spontaneity and motion of application. Taiwanese-born Carol Hu adheres to the strict principle of solely applying paint to canvas and using few media. In Pattern she painted everyday for three months laboring over the composition and color palette, changing with her mood. More recently, the pieces hanging in the front room are gestural denoting more freedom and looser stroke.

Chas Harold expresses through an organically inspired dialogue, an exploration of sensual juxtaposition. His forms, primarily monolithic, are infused with textural, tonal and chromatic subtleties beckoning the viewer to join in his journey. Harold incorporates a diverse range of materials and their applications to create a literal depth. In earlier work he exploits the rawness of unprimed canvas and in recent, the opacity of dense media. The artist maintains the motif of organic monolithic forms.

Marks’ intricate works speak to the viewer through their layers of vibrant paint. Clusters of color and texture roughly applied are the beginnings of a divergent result. Their smooth, luminescent quality reflects intent of visual sensation. He primarily works large-scale — through an exercise of restraint in Big & Small (2008) he was commissioned to create a series of small pieces on canvas. Mostly a self-taught artist, Marks was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and attended the University of Alabama.

Textural and layered depth is common between Cristian Candamil and Joshua Gage, though individual results prove vastly dissimilar. Cristian Candamil is a self-taught artist born in rural Colombia. Candamil’s early works in their texture, composition, and color palette display a fascination with the surroundings of his youth. Currently, he focuses on incorporating the foreign imagery of recent experiences into what had been such an endogenous process. The on-canvas product of that endeavor is a palpable tension between a rural fidelity to tradition and an urban obsession with modernity.

Joshua Gage produces gritty, urban paintings, which allude to contemporary popular influences, from graffiti scrawl to graphic novels. His emphasis on these surroundings is evident in the use of monochromatic earth tones livened with neon colors. The Good Fighter is exemplary of painterly manipulation of brush without reliance on mixed media. Collage, spray paint, graphite, and oil pastels are utilized in much of his work. Cross Wall is a montage of iconic imagery relying on collage. Gage received his M.A. from New York University.