Chris Ballantyne: Some Songs from the Shore

With deadpan finesse, Chris Ballantyne graphically renders the landscape of parking lots, fences, jetties, housing developments and excavations. Despite and because of the simplicity of his style, the works are spatially and narratively complex and ambiguous.

In his second solo exhibition in Hosfelt’s San Francisco gallery, Ballantyne explores the in-betweenness of place in works ranging from large-scale murals to small-scale india ink drawings. Are the structures he represents being built, or are they deteriorating? Are the places full possibility, or pointless folly? They’re empty, quirky — even absurd — and somewhat romantic. As well as anxiety-provoking in their depiction of the emotional detachment of American culture.

Chris Ballantyne received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and resides in Brooklyn. His work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York as well as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.