| Oakland
artist Chris Duncan is everywhere. In the past year, his paintings and
installations have been featured in countless shows, both locally and
nationally. His style is becoming easily recognizable, partly because
of a distinct recurring theme.
“I started drawing birds about seven years ago. My girlfriend and
I, on our first date, saved a mourning dove, and that kinda spawned this
relationship that I still have,” Duncan says with a grin. “It
references in a sentimental sense this bond, and in a more ambiguous sense
the idea of family and also a body for a soul, in different forms. It’s
definitely a loaded image; it represents a lot historically as well as
contemporarily.
“[Before that] it was a lot of painting on skateboards and found
stuff,” he goes on. “I didn’t know what the hell I was
doing, so [the bird theme] kind of grounded me and gave me something to
work within.”
Duncan
grew up in New Jersey and moved to the West Coast in 1995, settling in
the Bay Area shortly afterwards, where he received his BFA in Painting
from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland.
Though birds are significant for many reasons, the artist admits he’s
ready to take his work in different directions.
“I’m in a transition period,” he tells
me with enthusiasm. “I’m getting more interested in taking
over space [and] more ephemeral, transient things - hence the string installations.
It’s taking into consideration the whole space and interacting with
the energy of the space. And that it can’t be bought or sold, I
think, is really interesting as well. It’s temporary, just like
we are; you can exist with it for the time that it’s up and then
it’s gone.”
Other
projects Duncan is excited about are a journal and calendar for Little
Otsu, a small press by vegan boutique Otsu, and his zine, Hot and
Cold, a collaboration with close friend and fellow artist Griffin
McPartland.
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Between the Lines
“Griffin
had done a zine called F Word years ago and we’d been talking
about making a zine," Duncan says. "But he [said] we’re,
aesthetically, completely different, so he kind of shot me down. But I
was like, ‘Let’s just call it Hot and Cold and it’ll
be totally different and that’ll be the concept!’ So we started
at #10 and we’re counting down. We just wanted to do something and
put it out there and then stop.”
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Duncan and co.
release a new edition of the hand-built, silk-screened, stenciled and
color-copied Hot and Cold every three to four months. All 150
copies of #5, released May 15, sold out in two weeks.
“We invite 15 to 20 people to contribute to each issue, and there’s
a lot of extras that come in the zine that are made on the dime and
the time of the people who contribute,” Duncan explains. “It’s
starting to pay for itself now, but for the most part, the extras are
out of the love of people wanting to give stuff away, so that’s
kind of rejuvenated my faith in people.”
Fresh from “Between the Lines,” a month-long show at Giant
Robot that ran through early May, Duncan and his art can be seen all
over the country this summer.
“I’m super busy,” he says, smiling. “It’s
nice! I have a show in Boston at Samson Projects [June 5-August 5].
Then I’m going to be in a group show in New Hampshire [June 3-July
10] called Young Mountain, and I have a solo show in North Carolina
at a place called Lump Gallery [in September]. Then Hot and Cold
is going to be part of a zine show at Yerba Buena in October; we’re
one of three zines they’re focusing on, so we’re really
excited about that.” Duncan says Hot and Cold will also
be curating satellite shows at Needles and Pens and PlaySpace Gallery
in October.
See more of Chris Duncan’s art at www.keepsakesociety.com.
Look for Hot and Cold as part of “The Zine Unbound: Kults,
Werewolves and Sarcastic Hippies” at Yerba Buena Center for the
Arts, Oct. 7-Dec. 30; get issue #4 later this summer at Needles
and Pens and Giant Robot in
San Francisco, and online at thedrama.org
and marketeast.com (while supplies
last).
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