Acrylic on Paper Collage
Chris Wheeler
New to ENCORE 2024!
About The Artist
I spent three years in the Northwest working various jobs and searching for my art form. When I moved to Tainan City, Taiwan, I found an art form that truly appealed to my creative side. While in Taiwan I studied art, specifically Chinese landscape painting and calligraphy, but more importantly I learned how to mount works on paper for scrolls and shoji screens. With this skill I was able to stretch and manipulate paper in ways very few people can. Shortly after, I began creating modern and midcentury stylized collages using these techniques. The discoveries I made in Tainan during those years made all of my future work possible.
I have been working on a new series of abstracts that are provocative and highly textured. The series Vedauwoo is inspired by an area of rocky outcrops located in southeastern Wyoming. It is a region located 30 miles north of my home in Fort Collins, Colorado. The rocky outcrop of large stacked rock granite formations rocks are the inspiration behind the cut paper shapes. Large blocks of weathered Sherman granite primarily composed of crystalline fragments of quartz and feldspar. They are grouped together in large granite towers formed by stacks of huge rectangular blocks that have been rounded by windblown sand. The geometric shapes with rounded edges of the collage mimic the stacked rock formations. The texturing and layering of paper creates a sensation that is highly complex and provocative. Colors are drawn from the sand, sky and trees. The handmade paper is stretched and textured with medium body acrylics. Each piece is hand cut and glued with wheat paste.
