Chris Uphues

Chris Uphues is inspired by a complex range of popular cultural references such as commercial advertising, cartoons, comic and pop art, as well as the directness of outsider art. Each densely detailed composition explodes at the seams, as forms, characters and objects fall onto one another in a fevered ecstasy. 

With an emphasis on detail and obsessive precision, Uphues attempts a mind-bending preciseness with the paintbrush that defies logic. The surface is flat; a style utilizing characteristics of folk, pop and visionary art, in which traditional rules of proportion and perspective are not employed. Overall Uphues style is approachable and translates across generations. Inside this frenzied euphoria of “incidental graphics” – the smiley faces, hearts, flowers, patterns of puffy mushrooms, doe-eyed fruit and rockets – pop references, past and present are democratized and made joyful.

Chris Uphues has shown his work nationally and internationally in galleries and museums.

He is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.