'Lexicon'
An Exhibition of Works by Christopher Pelley
The Project Room
October 1 - 23, 2005 

Chinese Bowl
10 X 10 Inches
Oil on Linen

Glass Vase
10 X 10 Inches
Oil on Linen

Grapes 2
10 X 10 Inches
Oil on Linen

Red Bucket
Oil on Linen

Ribbon
Oil on Linen

Christopher's Home Page

Biography 

Over the past decade or so, I have developed, or rather staked a claim to a small catalogue of images. These images, like stock characters in the commedia dell’ arte, have been employed and repeated in a succession of paintings. They have become my iconography; my personal vocabulary, if you wish. They stand in for ideas (grapes, drapery and drips - the legend of two greek painters and the concept of what is real), references (oranges - the golden apples of mythology and the orange trees that surrounded my former Phoenix Arizona home) or they are there just for the sheer joy of painting them (watermelon slices).

In this exhibition I have isolated the individual images and let them stand alone. With each small canvas I explore what it is that I enjoy about the object. Sometimes it is the highlight plopped on a Chinese porcelain bowl that makes it glow; or the seductive blue in a cloudy sky; or the simple lines that describe a glass vase. By isolating the images from the comradeship of others, then placing the canvases in proximity to each other, they become more than individual paintings. They become a summation of twenty years of images and ideas. They are a visual lexicon of the work of Christopher Pelley

Christopher Pelley
New York, 2005

Amphora
Oil on Linen

Leaves
Oil on Linen

Chinese Pot
Oil on Linen

LEXICON

The exhibition ‘LEXICON’ by Christopher Pelley consists of 16 images. Each image is a work in oil on linen measuring 10 inches by 10 inches. The works are $750 each or $9,000 for the entire installation.