“squares”
PORTFOLIO TITLE: “I’m considering the square.”
MEDIUM: 35mm photographs tiled onto aluminum as a single print.
ART SIZE: 48×48 inches (each).
PRICE: $12,000 each, when purchased directly from the artist. ($1000 to print and ship; $1000 for the time in field and later design; $10,000 for the artist before he dies and the work becomes super-expensive). If purchased via one of the many galleries currently hustling for my representation, each will cost between $20,000 and $24,000. So collectors and those “in the know,” you’d do best to contact me soon…
PIECES IN PORTFOLIO: 49 – scroll down and I’d love if you clicked on a few…
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- After the rain and my limestone patio
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- Alice’s swing
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- Along the river at Gene Shoup’s house
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- Along the timber slope at Gene Shoup’s house
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- An intimate moment in the woods
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- At times there is a globe
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- At times there isn’t a globe
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- Beginning of an idea
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- Chris Shoup brings his old books to visit a forested wetlands in Illinois
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- Chris Shoup brings his old books to visit Rock Creek, Illinois.
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- Commission for a big, beautiful white room
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- Commission for Georgia O’Keeffe
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- Commission for the Katherine Edielmann Estate
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- Commission for the South Room of the Fille d’Honneur Cathedral, Paris
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- Do Not Cross
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- Electric Headdress
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- Fabric in the creek that ran cold around my legs
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- Fabric in the meadow that snagged my sweater
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- Fabric in the woods where I climbed the bent tree
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- Horse Creek. Salina Township, Illinois.
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- Illinois prairie eyelashes
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- Kenneth Shoup oak
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- Light and water in Salina Township
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- New uses for old books. Softball for Girls (1943); At Home in India (1956); Jets of the World (1966).
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- Ode to Alexander Calder
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- Ode to Christo and Jeanne-Claude 1
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- Ode to Christo and Jeanne-Claude 2
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- Ode to Christo and Jeanne-Claude 3
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- Ode to Christo and Jeanne-Claude 4
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- Ode to Wright 1
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- Ode to Wright 2
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- Ode to Wright 3
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- Ode to Wright 4
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- Ode to Wright 5
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- Perry Farm Sunset 1
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- Perry Farm Sunset 2
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- Perry Farm Sunset 3
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- Perry Farm Sunset 4
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- Perry Farm Sunset 5
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- Railroad support 1
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- Railroad support 2
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- Remains of my grandfather’s hunting lodge
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- Rugs on Gene Shoup’s property
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- Staring down justice
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- The bridge you cross on the way to Peaceful Dreams, Illinois. Population 7,329.
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- The ivy columns of Briarwood Equestrian Center. Salina Township, Illinois.
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- Tiles and clay
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- Tiles and water
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- Where the natives once fished, drank, bathed and lived a sustainable lifestyle is our metal and concrete bridge.
HISTORY: This idea is based on the old-world concept of ‘tessellation’ (also simply called tiling). Tessellation was practiced by early Greeks and Muslims. They tiled their homes with repeating patterns to create decorative designs. In 2004 I was teaching a math lesson to 10 year olds about tessellations. Some while later, on the floor of my small apartment, I had the insight to tile photographs. I immediately saw the possibility of large tiled pieces, and for the past seven years I’ve explored the technical means of producing these pieces and I’ve become artistically interested in learning the ways specific patterns evolve from photographic repetition.
TECHNICAL: All work starts on film. I shoot with a Canon AE1. I use no photoshop. I crop every image in the field. Every pattern is built of one or more undoctored and repeated images. Some pieces in this portfolio stand alone (such as the Commissions and Illinois prairie eyelashes) and some pieces are part of a series (such as the Odes and the Perry Farm Sunsets).
CREATION: I love to consider many compositional possibilities, and then calculate the single strongest composition. I study layers of shadows, conditions of light, reflections, natural colors (and periodically I experiment by bringing color tiles or fabrics into the field). I will sit in grass, on fallen trees, alongside water or at a local building’s face for a period of time until I discover what most interests me.
GOAL: Patterns have engaged humans for thousands of years; my photographic patterns are engaging and they also encourage the viewer to look closer at the very content of the pattern. I am from the Midwest of North America; I am presenting what is “local” to me as something ”foreign and previously unseen” to art buyers and art collectors who live in the growing economies of the Middle East, Far East, and other distant lands. I’d also love to sell to American collectors.
- Christopher Shoup
