THE JAVA PROJECT
Nurtured Forms
By Christopher Fahey
Artist’s Reception: Saturday November 9th, 6-9PM
November 9th - December 7th
Laboring through dust, wood, and plastic, I make relief objects that have been nurtured through focus, will, and love.
The process these objects have gone through and all the energy I've exerted may not be obvious, but its leavings are still emanating and open to scrutiny.
When any form is nurtured, the wake of that treatment is readily apparent to our senses. I attempt to harness this energy of nurturing through patience and nuance - that energy being as much of a height to be reached in process as it is to be contained in the end result.
Seemingly dissonant shapes are first visited with passing glances and become conjoined through both different orientations of looking and a persistent hand beset with fluidity. In working, I am heavily influenced by the vacillation of my memory and emotions.
What I have left to say for myself will be revealing of my conscious narrative and subjective truths, but through the work, there is another view, possibly more awoken to self-awareness than I am with my words. Somewhere in between my attraction to combining hard-edge materials and the work of shaping them into rounded ones, amidst the meticulous layering of glue and paint, exists my contentious childhood, the artists I enjoy, various traumas, the tenuous safety of secrets, and a considerable emotional void that propels me to continue working in and around this theme of nurturing.
Born in 1983 in NJ, Christopher Fahey received a BFA from Pratt Institute in 2011 and his BA (in English) from Providence College in 2005. While at Pratt, he participated in a one-to-one exchange program and attended Musashino Arts University in Tokyo, Japan. In between these two collegiate experiences, he spent several months traveling through different European cities, visiting museums and developing his traditional painting and drawing skills. He has exhibited his work in various group shows and pop-ups in New York since 2011, this will be Chris's first solo show. His professional work experience as a conservation and museum technician have greatly contributed to his inspiration and creative self-awareness through the daily hands-on exposure to so much art history. His three-dimensional work represents a labor-intensive studio practice spanning the last 8 years.