Chris Horner is a self-taught digital artist operating out of Portland, OR. His practice takes the form of appropriation-based digital collage, blurring the line between figuration and abstraction, as familiar elements peek through the chaos of his compositions.
His process begins with an obsession–he considers himself a digital hoarder. Provoked by an insatiable fixation, he has long collected and cataloged endless pieces of media ephemera. Each day, during the Sisyphean scroll of modern life, he begins anew the process of saving images, headlines, screenshots, publicity and paparazzi photographs, memes, film and television stills, slogans and advertisements.
Having carried out this routine for over a decade, the file dump has become a work unto itself. In fact, when the folder on his phone where these items are stored reached a capacity of 66,666 files, he transferred the entire folder to a novelty Garfield thumb drive, a wink to the internet’s ongoing love for the famous cartoon cat, and turned the raw accumulation of files into a sculptural work, a totem to the hopelessness of keeping up with and keeping track of the endless stream of information.
From this epic catalog of seemingly random information, he begins the process of tearing down and building back up. Images are denatured, and eroded through various means, layered, combined, skewed and merged, sometimes in a very rough, rudimentary way, and other times through an intentional misuse of sophisticated AI functionality.
These works examine the ways in which information is distorted, the way that images of the shocking, familiary, arousing, and satisfying are used to effectively manipulate the public.
Chris has exhibited work in Portland and San Francisco, as well as appearing in various arts publications and virtual shows. His work was selected for the Saatchi-sponsored Other Art Fair New Futures program, presented in Los Angeles, and was also chosen for the best-of-fair. This fall he will be participating for the first time in the Portland Open Studios project.
