Put this in the hallway, at the height where you take your coat off.
That is a wall nobody decorates and everybody uses. Twelve times a day you pass it. This is a picture that gives you something back for it.
What is going on in it
A figure bent forward, head buried in pages, face turned away from you. Behind them, a wall that has been posted over and torn back so many times the old layers show through — paste wrinkles, lifting edges, spray fades sliding into each other. Sun-bleached teal, and vermilion.
Now the part worth a second look. Where the stencil slipped, the vermilion bleeds sideways into the teal. Just a hand’s width of misregistration. It makes the figure read as if they are moving faster than the wall can hold them. Chris left that in on purpose. He works this way — layers out of alignment, nothing clean, no lettering anywhere, the commentary carried by what got covered up instead.
As one critic put it: the figure stays unknowable, and the wall behind it tells the story instead.
What happens once it is up
Guests do not glance at this and move on. They lean in, because the torn edges look like something you could pick at. Then they ask what the person is reading, and there is no answer, and that keeps them there another minute.
Getting it on the wall
Canvas with a real visible weave, which matters here — that tooth is what keeps the torn paper looking torn instead of looking like a sticker. Stretched over solid wood an inch and a quarter deep, image wrapped round the sides, ready to hang out of the box. One nail. No framer, no glass, no surprise bill. Matte, so a lamp or a window opposite gives you the picture back, not a glare.
Landscape. The 20 x 16 in (50.8 x 40.6 cm) is preselected and suits most hallways. $149, free shipping in the continental US, a high quality print made to order, so up to ten business days before it leaves.
One honest thing
It has an opinion. If you want something calm and agreeable above the console table, this argues.
If that is the point, take it home. Otherwise go through the rest of Chris’s work, or follow him and catch the next one early.
One is a piece. Two is a set. Three is a collection.
Almost nobody stops at one. A second work by the same hand turns a wall into a pairing. A third turns it into something you chose rather than something you bought. There are 3 other works by Chris Vega available.
