Ecdysis, Artist Notes:

Almost the entirety of my early studio work and the Portraits of Narcissism were conceived in visually debating specific MODERN period art from college textbooks (Jansen), the Hirshhorn, and the National Gallery of Art, as well as work viewed via bus trips to NYC to the MoMA and the Metropolitan, pulling the visual constructs apart to be reassembled in my own voice.

In contrast, Ecdysis was incepted as a desire to extract a unique creative idea from my own head, and then to subject that idea to the same process … to physically destroy it and then build a new visual outcome.

Ecdysis started in studio as 2 raw square canvases that wanted to discover unity…

First it was about colour theory, and very subtle texture achieved by knifing light-to-dark variations of orange and blue into a pair of monochromes.

Then it was about violence, and a scalpel, and the need for something to be actively dismembered in order to interrelate with its visual counterpart.

Then it was about a syringe and wire thread, and the pulling of something apart to achieve an impossible beauty through negative space and extension.

Then it culminated with the fusion of the monochromes, the addition of stitching embellishment, and the turning of the final wall hanging 45 degrees, evolving it from a square to a diamond, and thereby further transforming it into a statement of precious worth.

The end state of Ecdysis is that of being a monument achieved by process, and not via natural privilege or birthright. It is a statement of self-revolution (violence inherent). Evolution was neither fast enough nor good enough to achieve what need to be done to save it.

Themes Explored: sexual and emotional emancipation, self-loathing and self-destructive behavior, exorcism, internal and external struggles.

To see more work from Ecdysis or to read the artist statement, please e-mail me at cs@christopherstout.com.

Ecdysis, 2001. 48"x48" diagonal: oil and acrylic on canvas with cut-outs affixed by wire to oil and acrylic on canvas.

Themes Explored: sexual and emotional emancipation, self-loathing and self-destructive behavior, exorcism, internal and external struggles.