Harman Projects is pleased to announce CONTRASTS, a solo exhibition of new works by Toronto-based painter Chris Austin. Known for his dreamlike paintings of wildlife anachronistically navigating suburban and urban settings, Austin’s latest body of work builds on his unique surreal visual language. This will mark the artist’s second solo presentation with Harman Projects and his first solo exhibition in San Francisco.
Austin’s work explores the precipice of narrative and metaphor. In CONTRASTS, marine life drift quietly through familiar yet eerily ominous terrains: snow-covered streets, dimly lit intersections, and quiet neighborhoods under sodium light. These improbable juxtapositions unsettle and invite, prompting the viewer to confront their own sense of alienation while also sparking imagination and delight. Rendered in rich hues and cinematic lighting, the works suggest the filmic tension of Edward Hopper’s twilight scenes (House at Dusk, 1935) and cerebral surrealism of René Magritte (Le Domaine d'Arnheim, 1962).
At the heart of Austin’s practice lies a personal mythology stemming from his own deeply personal autobiographical experiences. The artist describes his aquatic protagonists as “symbolic anchors” drawn from his own childhood experiences embodying moments and memories of both chaos and clarity. Marine life, in particular, becomes a recurring metaphor for higher consciousness and emotional refuge. The scenes he paints are less about a literal coexistence of worlds than about navigating more abstract psychological terrains: moments of serenity and silence cast into the wake of dissonance and estrangement.
