Chris Hirson

In developing his deeply personal style, Chris Hirson draws on a number of aesthetic traditions and, applied to the imagery of his own American up-bringing, he creates a contemporary Neo-Classical Dream-Reality, a warmth and coldness which seems to generate fear, anxiety, and a distant eroticism.

The figures in his portraits appear cold and dead at first, but soon reveal a hidden depth and complex, contradictory emotions. Beneath their stark poses, their partial nakedness and ambiguous stares emanate an aura of dream and reality, of danger, and the diffusion of male and female identity in what seems to be an interplay between life and death.

With flowers and plants, at the ocean or before a distant mountain range, whether in a late afternoon sunset or among fantastical animals and creatures, they meet the spectator with challenging glances in a setting both real and other-worldly ...

Chris Hirson was born in New York City in 1955. He studied Art and Literature at Hunter College NYC and the Art Students League, NYC. He lives and works in Berlin.

1980 - 1990 Early Works

1990 - 2000 Pretty Nice People (or The Family of Our Minds)

2000 - 2019 Party People. People and Friends of Berlin in the Wild East

2019 - Present Garden Delights...inspired by the work of Bosch.

On-going Projects:

Lessons From Lives

people and their lives and what they learned from it all. in book and film form

I Escaped

tales of danger and romance, treasure and excess, rescue and revenge, fear and fun.

Our Present

inspired by the TAT psychological testing which asks the viewer to invent a story.

My Thoughts