“One of the more surprisingly successful definitions of art and the aesthetic to come out of the Kantian tradition is the claim that the aesthetic is that which is useless and non instrumental. This makes the aesthetic marginal, so the argument goes, in a grimly instrumentalist world. If the aesthetic is that which is marginal, that which is ignored, left over or set aside as surplus, does that in itself give it value, meaning and power?”

Steven Connor. What If There Were No Such Thing As The Aesthetic?

Christopher’s work is informed by a multi sensory aesthetic response to nature which, by its very nature, applies a high level of importance to the existence of an aesthetic reaction within the working process. This attempt to reconcile a painting language with a response to nature is problematic because of the boundaries of the painted object and a preconceived notion of what a painting should do at the spectators point of reception (reformulating it within their own experiential and historic framework, or viewing it in the context of an established critique). How can a two dimensional surface possibly achieve the same impact as being part of an actual environment? Trying to answer this question would be missing the point of Christopher’s work in that he is trying to extend his own personal response to a particular place by putting less emphasis on the paintings as something that refers to a person place or thing, and painting more as an expression of the idea of happening or being, and trying to recreate or, more realistically, prolong the response through a metaphoric use of process and paint and responding to the paintings as they evolve.

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