La Luz de Jesus Gallery is pleased to present Death, Renewal, and the Second Enlightenment, a solo exhibition by Christopher Bales on view from February 7 – March 1, 2020.

Although sourced from dusty, often rusted, flea market antiques, Christopher Bales’ compositions are far from stale. Bales’ process of finding, collecting, and assembling these found objects is akin to breathing new life into something forgotten. Each found doll head, animal bone, or antique locket he uses has a past life, but when integrated into an assemblage, becomes reborn. His sculptures, thus, have a magical, almost holy, aura about them. Heavily influenced by his Catholic upbringing, Christopher Bales’ assemblages evoke the coexistence of extremes – the agony and the ecstasy, the haunting and the divine. It is this duplicitous sensation that allows his pieces to feel ineffably familiar, but totally unique. As opposed to mimicking existing objects, Bales is interested in allowing his objects to simply be objects: unnamable, indescribable, but often reminiscent of a gothic chapel, a futuristic device, or a bad dream.

Born and raised in Sacramento California, central Californian assemblagist, Christopher Bales, has been showing his work on the west coast since 1988. He graduated the American River College in 1985 with an Associate of Arts degree focusing on oil painting and watercolor. After one year of studying figure drawing and painting at California State University, Bales went on to earn an MFA in drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture from the California College of Arts and Crafts. In 1989, Bales developed his signature mixed media assemblage technique, and continues take this three-dimensional approach today. Bales has shown his work at the Center for Contemporary Art Sacramento, Solomon Dubnick Gallery, Phantom Gallery, and the Kennedy Gallery Art Center. This will be Bales’ second solo presentation with La Luz de Jesus Gallery.

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