Amir Chasson

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Selected works by Amir Chasson

Special Purpose Pictoral Graph
Amir Chasson
Special Purpose Pictoral Graph

2009

Oil, pencil and household paint

52 x 82 x 2cm
Amir Chasson’s paintings seem to juxtapose two different ways of understanding the world: the statistic, represented in graph form, and the individual, a close-up portrait. At first look, this combination – man against number – might stand for a straightforward social critique, or a restaging of an age-old conflict in painting itself (the figurative against the abstract). Yet it’s the act of painterly transcription, and particularly Chasson’s soft, almost tender blurring of the transitions in a human face, that complicates such an easy reading.
Filled Surface
Amir Chasson
Filled Surface

2010

Oil, pencil and household paint on canvas

61 x 91 x 2cm
The eyes of his painted faces meet ours warily, or look away in response to scrutiny, recalling photographs taken quickly, perfunctorily – the workplace headshot, maybe, or police mugshot. Painting’s slowness transforms the image into something to be looked at, not merely a functional identifier for a laminated pass, and it does that for the graphs, too.
Hand Drawn Topo Map
Amir Chasson
Hand Drawn Topo Map

2010

Oil, pencil and household paint on canvas

61 x 91 x 2cm
Stripped of numerical data or titles and rendered in household paint, they become mute abstractions hovering in space. Painting levels the playing field, enabling lines of communication and sympathy to be drawn between the two: they become (as in a work like Mat is Helping Us) a kind of double portrait. Released from language – this person’s job, this graph’s meaning – Chasson’s works are celebrations of not knowing, small assertions of mystery and doubt.
Pie Chart 13
Amir Chasson
Pie Chart 13

2009

Oil, pencil and household paint on canvas

101 x 81 x 2cm
Green GT
Amir Chasson
Green GT

2010

Oil, pencil and household paint on canvas

101 x 81 x 2cm
Three Dimensional Topo Using Contor Lines
Amir Chasson
Three Dimensional Topo Using Contor Lines

2010

Oil, pencil and household paint on canvas

100 x 121 x 2cm
Mat Is helping Us
Amir Chasson
Mat Is helping Us

2011

Oil, pencil and household paint on canvas

51 x 81 cm
No Other
Amir Chasson
No Other

2011

Oil, pencil and household paint on canvas

51 x 81 cm
Duncan's Stimulus
Amir Chasson
Duncan's Stimulus

2011

Oil, pencil and household paint on canvas

51 x 81 cm

Text by Ben Street


Amir Chasson's Biography

Amir Chasson
Born in 1968, Israel
Lives and works in London, UK


SOLO EXHIBITIONS


2012
My French Nurse’s Dream at Outpost, Norwich


GROUP EXHIBITIONS


2012
Manmadegod, Arteco, London

2011
Mr. Corner Table Preference, Grosvenor Works, London
Drawing 2011, The Drawing Room, London
Salon, Doubtfire Gallery, Edinburgh
The Marmite Painting Prize, The Nunnery, London(April) and UK tour

2010
Unfeasibility Study, Mare Street Biennale 2010, London
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2010, ICA, London
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2010, A Foundation, Liverpool
Goldsmiths MFA 2010, Goldsmiths University, London
Pause and Eject part 2, Shoreditch Town Hall, London

2009
Drawing Salon, Mews Projects Space, London
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2009, A Foundation, London
Jerwood Drawing Prize 2009, Jerwood Space, London and UK tour
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2009, Cornerhouse, Manchester
Pause and Eject, The Rag Factory, London