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Catharine Clark Gallery

November 3 - December 23, 2012

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248 Utah Street
 San Francisco, CA 94103
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A Pilgrim’s Progress Chester Arnold, 60 Years in The Forest, 2012, oil on linen, 72x60 inches
Catharine Clark Gallery announces “A Pilgrim's Progress,” a solo exhibition of paintings by Chester Arnold. The exhibition dates are November 3–December 22, 2012. The artist will be present for the reception on Saturday, November 3, from 3–5pm, and will lead a casual walk-through of the exhibition at 3pm. For “A Pilgrim’s Progress,” the artist presents new paintings rooted in imagery of the west—grand landscapes scarred by the work of miners, stratified and marked by history: both geological and human—stages for metaphorical narratives and occasions for the contemplation of the human journey. The title of the exhibition references the 1678 Christian allegory by John Bunyan and describes the artist’s journey through what he calls “the disorganized religion of art.” “As the secular madman that I am, there is a constant, inescapable commentary staring back at me from the Judeo-Christian pollution in my early life. I love the stories, but deplore the dogma.” Chester Arnold’s painted imagery—tempered with humor and optimism—grapples with transitions, isolation, and the passage of time through depictions of aged men, skeletons, and deep chiseled chasms. American by birth, but raised in post-war Germany during his formative years, Arnold is interested in the capacity of painting to convey the complexities of the human psyche. His compositions often present skewed linear perspectives that place the viewer above and beyond an unfolding narrative, and his romantic natural landscapes, in part informed by classic literature and the work of 19th century German painter Caspar David Friedrich, are littered with the abject accumulation of modern cultural detritus. His work has been the subject of several institutional survey exhibitions and is in the public collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the di Rosa, and the Crocker Art Museum, among many others. He lives and works in Sonoma, California, and has been represented by Catharine Clark Gallery since 2003.