Chris Schultz received his BFA from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2018 and his MFA from the University of Arkansas in 2021. Schultz's studio practice spans a variety of media,
including works on paper, moving image, and object making, and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Born in Oklahoma, he now lives and works in Northwest Arkansas, teaching within the University of Arkansas School of Art’s Foundations Program. He has been a resident artist at Space Department in Nara, Japan, led a number of animation workshops at the Fayetteville Public Library, and in 2024 co-founded Pond, an artist-run gallery located on the Fayetteville Square.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Mountain Shadow brings together two bodies of work shaped by two mountains: Kasugayama in Nara, Japan, and The Mountain in Prairie Grove, Arkansas. Across the works a playful optimism emerges. Earlier works were developed during a residency in Nara. Sustained research and close observation of Kasugayama and the city around it informed both material and compositional decisions. The more recent works emerged after moving to a home on the side of The Mountain, where daily labor, home building, and routine interaction with the surrounding environment continue to shape the practice.
Though geographically distinct, these mountains function as parallel characters representing the people who inhabit these landscapes, their daily routines a density that is contrasted by the vast scale of time that these two geological phenomena embody in their past and in their future. Throughout the exhibition, landscapes are integrated into intimate gestures of care. Small sized collages work to simplify the complexity of the landscapes. A collection of small drawings comment on the minutia of the everyday while a small z-scale train plays out its daily routine.
Mountain Shadow positions optimism and lightness in contrast to the existential weight of an uncertain future. A love letter, appreciating each day that plays out within The Mountain Shadow.
CHRIS SCHULTZ / FEATURED ARTIST