CHRIS LIBERTI •   EAST AURORA, NY

Raised and educated on the East Coast, Liberti studied at Buffalo State College with the realist painter Jim Phalen, who had once studied with Bay Area painter Paul Wonner. He shows extensively throughout North Carolina, as well as California and New York.

Liberti currently lives and works out of Aurora, New York.

I’m interested in how beautifully strange the world can be and how the ageless, innocent, simple act of placing colors and shapes together are able to illuminate this idea. A two dimensional surface expanding into a space that allows us to move through. With each painting there is an underlying influence that ushers in a composition that I could have never imagined on my own free will. The process leads me there. 

I want to paint nothing then I want to paint something. I think that painting nothing helps me take more risks while painting something. The “nothing” can be used as a stimulus for the something, instead of simply trying to copy. It’s not so much the importance or nostalgia of the subject matter, for me, it’s about the interactions of the formal elements of painting that can imply a feeling, similar to that of a song without lyrics. Marks, colors, shapes and passages make sounds, like the anchor of a chord or the movement of a melody. Within and beneath the surface the composition oscillates and quietly reconstructs the arrangement. My eyes are always searching. There is plenty to to see once you let yourself engage in this curiosity. Enough can happen within a simple moment, a shadow, a shape of light. How does one object react to another, what visual story or experience can be felt from these wordless conversations.

"My paintings, which are painted from life, are records of sensations: of what I feel about the things I see. I am forever engaged by the formal possibilities of painting—of color and form together—and my compositions reflect this profound engagement. The act of seeing—which includes attempting to suggest the passing of time while capturing the essence of things—is more important to me than the subjects themselves. Words can sometimes help us to unravel life’s mysteries, but there are other ways to “say” something and painting is one of the most powerful. Eventually (and hopefully) my paintings will stand on their own and allow those who view them a space for contemplation and offer a respite. Of course, a painting can never entirely be what you or I want it to be: it can only be what it needs to become.”

The subject matter in Chris Liberti’s recent paintings comes from his interest in the way the forms around him can be re-configured and made to work together. Whether Liberti is painting rooflines, bookshelves, palm trees or telephone poles, he sees them not as isolated elements, but as part of a larger scheme. In his carefully carpentered compositions, Liberti joins the edges of forms and the spaces that surround them into remarkably pleasing and luminous paintings. Strikingly balanced, Liberti’s canvases manage to be both highly-organized and free at the same time. Liberti has a feeling for paradox and knows how to create unexpected harmonies of form and color.

 


ASSOCIATED EXHIBITIONS

LOWEL LEVEL GALLERY

Opening Reception: Friday, January 5th (5-7pm)

January 5 - February 21, 2024
Color Stories
LOWER LEVEL GALLERY
November 4 - December 28, 2022
MAIN GALLERY
March 4 - April 27, 2022