Scott Richards Contemporary Art presents Phantom Space a new series of uniquely fabricated two- and three-dimensional works by Chris Dorosz. A cocktail reception for the artist will take place on Thursday, April 6, 5:00-7:00 pm. The exhibition continues through April 28.

“What would the true nature of reality look like if it was stripped of its narrative and we could understand everything that made up the matter of things all at once?”

This is a question that might have been posed by a physicist, engineer or biologist, but instead it is how Chris Dorosz approaches his latest area of artistic exploration: “Through the process of reduction and layering [the work] becomes an archetypal representation of the space... For me, this shift from the specific to the archetypal is a spiritual inquiry. What remains, what is removed and what overlaps begins to suggest the true nature of things.”

In Phantom Space, Dorosz expounds on the idea that space enveloping all matter is suffused by indelible memories of previous events, memories, which in turn imprint on everyone passing through. Composed of colorful brush strokes that seem to float unconfined upon parallel rows of monofilament the intimately scaled, three-dimensional installations are mesmerizing. Their complex layers reveal abstracted figures moving thru methodically arranged pictorial grids while exploding visual abstraction and exposing the truest material at it’s core – paint. Also included in the exhibition are examples of his “staple-paintings” and a digital print created at the Digital Painting Atelier Residency, Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto, Canada.

Dorosz has always been interested in deconstructing visual imagery into elemental units, and reassembling it in a way that challenges our visual assumptions. He is well known for his three-dimensional, wall-mounted figure groupings, which are constructed on a vertical grid of clear nylon rods suspended within a Plexiglas framework, to which multiple drops of paint are meticulously applied. The clusters of paint drops form figures that materialize, floating in space, and interact in a way that is reminiscent of actors on a stage.

Steven Matijcio, in his 2008 essay for The Painted Room, Dorosz’ solo, large-scale exhibition at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, wrote, “Like the apparitions floating in and out of legibility, we come to mirror the ethereal hand of Dorosz in The Painted Room – moving fluidly between absence and presence, abstraction and representation, coherence and chaos.”

Born in Canada, where he earned his master’s degree at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Chris Dorosz now makes his home in San Francisco. His work has been exhibited widely in North the United States and Canada. Elements of Dorosz’ process will be included in Detritus, an upcoming 2017 group exhibition, at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA. He has been featured in Elle magazine and Canadian Art Magazine, among other publications. This is his third solo exhibition at Scott Richards Contemporary Art.