FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

See Line Gallery presents “Wallpaper of Champions”, Chris Oatey’s first solo exhibition,
Including drawings, sculpture and sound installation.

“Wallpaper of Champions”uses sports imagery as subject matter towards a greater
understanding of entertainment as spectacle. Crowds of spectators are juxtaposed with
athletes to create a wallpaper of imagery on two walls of the gallery. Through a process
of removal, Oatey has drawn images that originated as photographs. Carbon transfer
drawings focus the viewer on certain parts of a picture, whether it is a pose or facial
expression. Drawings of team photos show us only the silhouette of uniforms while a
drawing of a crowd is made up of raised arms. A degree of specificity has been taken
from the images and allows the viewer to focus on what remains.

“Wallpaper of Champions” makes us consider how we identify with professional athletes,
the spaces they compete in, and how reception of these events creates a longing and
cathartic sensation within the spectator. It follows the direction Oatey's practice has taken
by drawing spectacle imagery through labor intensive processes. His meticulously
constructed mushroom cloud drawings were derived from photographs of nuclear tests.
The photographs were filtered through an unskilled drawing process that recreated their
spectacle character in order to question their magnitude as images.

Chris Oatey was most recently chosen for the Kent State University Drawing Invitational in
Ohio and to exhibit his work at Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles.  His work has also
been shown in the Forum Invitational at Cranbrook Academy of Art, New California
Masters at Works San Jose, and the LA Weekly Biennial at Track 16 Gallery
in Santa Monica.