The Artist
American painter, draftsman, printmaker, and sculptor Christopher Mudgett (b.1982) is a pioneering contemporary artist who rejects traditional abstraction in favor of recognizable subject matter, deliberately employing a raw style of rendering and a heightened monochromatic palette in order to convey direct emotion. Embracing the artistic developments of the first half of the 20th century (cubism,expressionism,minimalism), Mudgett returns the human figure to a central position in painting. Doing so in an ever new and dynamic way.
His work is spontaneous. Mudgett says, “Painting is not merely the illustration of a drawing. The paint must speak for itself.” He sees the beginning of every new work the same way a soldier would going in to battle, the stakes are very high. His art lives and dies on the canvas and inspires him to triumph over his doubts and fears to be victorious. Mudgett draws maximum inspiration from life itself. The people with whom he interacts daily, the ideas and beliefs that are closest to his soul, love in his heart and the doubts and fears he has of himself. The beauty around him, human pain and suffering, love and lust inspire all his creations. By making works of art that decode the mystery of life, Mudgett feels he is unintentionally discovering our motives as a society and in our humanity as a whole.
Mudgett does not deliberately decide on the subjects of his work. They are the ones that are most coherent in his mind, or themes taken from everyday life that stay in his thoughts and occasionally appear in his dreams. Art is therefore an inner look of one’s soul and consequently the external manifestation of our being. When looking at his paintings, one can feel the overwhelming strength and power of his black & white palette. However, the reason and meaning of this monochrome style go far beyond mere aesthetic pleasure:
"Black and white represents the duality experienced in life: night and day, good and evil, love and hate and life and death etc. I'm constantly being pushed and pulled in both directions. This duality is an undeniable part of our existence and, one cannot have an experience without its counterpoint being close at hand. We are the result of these opposing forces and although they may, at times, collide; they also attract by nature.” The shapes and volumes of the subjects present in his work are reduced to simple, continuous lines or geometric volumes of clear cubist ascendancy, taken a step further with the intent to continuously push the boundaries of what an artwork is meant to be.
Mudgett's artwork is held in private collections around the world, including: North & Central America, Great Britain, Singapore, Denmark, Spain, Germany, France & China.