Chris Lael Larson is a Portland-based artist working in the overlap of photography, assemblage, and painting to create new perceptual experiences. He culls riches from the everyday absurd, forefronting the strange, curious, and confounding ways we connect to each other, the things we consume, and the environments we inhabit. Larson constructs temporary altar-like installations utilizing found objects, reclaimed materials, natural elements, cheaply printed photographs, and paint to accentuate their latent qualities and reframe their meaning. He creates large-format photographs of his constructions with a hyperreal lighting technique to create a final image that confounds expectations.
Chris' work is inspired by contemporary artists who use hybridized approaches to blur the boundaries between photography and other mediums: Daniel Gordon's peculiar tableaux constructed from inkjet prints of internet imagery, Lucas Blalock's unrefined illusory manipulations; or David Gilbert's touching temporary sculptural constructions. While sharing similar thematic and formal qualities with these artists, Larson integrates his experience in music, advertising, and the plastic arts to layer abstracted brand designs and faux iconography with expressive mark-making and visual noise.
Chris has shown work in over 30 cities across the US, with notable exhibitions at the Berkeley Museum of Art, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, and The Portland Art Museum NW Film Center.
