¨(Nothing but) Flowers, 2¨ Work-in-progress by Chris Wyrick, 12 plywood sheets to be composed on a billboard structure
CHRIS WYRICK
(Nothing but) Flowers, 2
EL PATIO
Press and VIP
March 10 at 10am
Open to the Public
March 10 at 11am to April 23, 2023
¨This work addresses a number of themes including colonialism and consumer culture, but it is primarily about the loss of my father, who passed away last summer. He inspired me and my artwork in so many ways and one of the first was taking me to see the original Star Wars film in the theatre as a young child. Vader as a ‘lost father’ impacted me later in life. My father, Pete, was passionate about Mexico and he travelled here numerous times to photograph the people and the countryside. He introduced me to the work of the Mexican muralists; to the prehispanic work that inspired them, and also to his Mexican favorite beer : Bohemia.
The composition was born imagining the absurdity of a billboard with a frozen film still in the Baja desert. Both film and the billboard are very American modes of broadcast communication that could represent the challenge of cultural connection for expat Americans here in Baja California Sur.¨ - Chris Wyrick
** The full piece will be revealed on March 10th at 10am for PRESS and 11am for PUBLIC at El Patio, Santa Terra.
Chris Wyrick
“Through various media, I am exploring the dialectical relationships in our lives: the self to the other; parent to child; past to future; reason to absurdity; corporation to consumer; black to white; good to evil.”
Chris Wyrick is a painter from Charleston, SC. He studied classics, geology, religion, and painting at St. John’s College, NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School), and at Davidson College. He worked as an apprentice to painter Jack Beal in New York City and studied at the New York Academy of Art before receiving his MFA in drawing and painting from the University of Georgia in Athens, GA. He relocated his studio to Los Angeles in 2011.
Wyrick works in a wide variety of media and his artwork draws inspiration from many sources. Recurring themes in his work are transformation and duality - the polarities in our world that both divide us and unite us. His paintings are often based in natural forms, though he also works with images from photography and film. He embraces the dialectic of collaboration in the creative process and welcomes the opportunity to partner with other artists and designers.
In addition to working with more traditional drawing and painting media, Wyrick has invented a medium of drawing with checkerboard. He started drawing this way as a teenager as a mechanism to focus during classes in prep school, but it has grown over the years into a more politically charged means of expression. “The black and white of checkerboard is a divided line - a broken vocabulary - that I use to explore the shared and often divisive symbols and icons in our world.”
Chris splits his time between his home in Los Angeles and is currently building a home in Todos Santos, BCS.
See more work at
Photo of Chris Wyrick by Will Dearborn