By Christopher

Christopher Stott is a contemporary realist painter.

A Quick Trip to Los Angeles

Billis Williams Gallery / Los Angeles / February 24, 2024
Seven Clocks / 36 x 30 inches / oil on canvas / 2023

I have returned from a whirlwind trip to Los Angeles to attend the opening reception of my current solo exhibition at the Billis Williams Gallery.

I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where I saw an exhibition called “The World Made Wonderous,” showcasing 17th-century Dutch collections, including many paintings from which I draw direct influence. I won’t get too nerdy here, but I was entirely in my element and wandered through the gallery twice to absorb as much as possible.

Then, it was off to the gallery for the reception, where I met and talked with artists, collectors, and curious gallerygoers. The conversations I have during the receptions are always so encouraging. The best part is connecting with Tressa Williams, principal director of the gallery, who has shown my work for thirteen years. The key to any artist’s success is having a team of enthusiastic people who share your work with the world — that is precisely what Tressa does.

Piles of Unread Books

Several years ago, I painted a small series of “tsundoku” paintings. You can read about them here.

I am including a few new piles of unread books in my upcoming Los Angeles exhibition at the Billis Williams Gallery.

What Must I Do to Get Well? And How Can I Keep So? / 12 x 24 inches / oil on canvas / 2024 / framed

Now that I fully have a phone-brain and a mild dopamine-scrolling addiction, I find it more and more difficult to read books the way I used to. But I am up for the challenge and work my best to set aside time to read like it’s the olden times.

The Distressed Mind / 12 x 24 inches / oil on canvas / 2024 / framed

The exhibition of new paintings opens on Saturday, February 24th. I will be at the reception from 4pm–7pm that day.

Recent Clock Paintings

These two pieces will be part of my upcoming exhibition in Los Angeles at the Billis Williams Gallery, opening on February 24th.

My last exhibition in New York involved many large paintings, so this time around, I decided to work on a slightly smaller group of canvases.

Three Clocks & Pelican Classics / 18 x 36 inches / oil on canvas / 2024 / on the easel

Also, the black. Let’s talk about it. Years and years ago, I regularly set my work on deep black ground. I gradually phased that out and worked exclusively on white — or near-white grounds. In the past few years, I have done smaller paintings in black; it revealed my subject in a fresh and new way. So, above is the first of a slightly larger painting of what will become a new direction for my work.

Below, we have a neutral grey approach. Another way to make the subjects pop right off of the canvas.

Six Clocks – Folk Tales and Fables / 18 x 36 inches / oil on canvas / 2024 / on the easel

Upcoming Los Angeles Exhibition

At the end of February, we will see the opening of an exhibition of my latest paintings in Los Angeles at the Billis Williams Gallery. I have been working on tiny details for months now.

Memory: Facts and Fallacies No.2 paintig by Christopher Stott
Memory: Facts and Fallacies No.2 / 16 x 20 inches / oil on canvas / 2024 / on the easel

The subjects will be familiar to anyone who has seen my work before. Perhaps this time, you will catch new groupings of subjects with more contrast and depth in the lighting.

Memory: Facts and Fallacies No.3 painting by Christopher Stott
Memory: Facts and Fallacies No.3 / 18 x 24 inches / oil on canvas / 2024 / on the easel

In a word, the theme of this body of work would be Memory.

I will share more of the new paintings in the coming weeks.

Florida Art Fair

New work has just arrived in Miami for the upcoming art fair season. I sent two new bubble gum paintings to be shown with the George Billis Gallery. The Red Dot Fair runs from December 6–10.

Gumball Machine & Red Trunk No.1 / 36 x 24 inches / oil on canvas

Who doesn’t love a big colourful bubblegum machine?

Gumball Machine & Red Trunk No.2 / 36 x 24 inches / oil on canvas

And so again, I have entered the quiet, busy painting phase as I work toward an upcoming exhibition in Los Angeles for late February 2024.

American Art Collector October 2023

I am so happy to share the news that one of my paintings is on the cover of American Art Collector magazine’s October 2023 issue. Check out the feature below, where I talk about the recent work for my upcoming exhibition in New York City.

American Art Collector / October 2023

Over years of collecting, Christopher Stott has amassed roughly 100 clocks, 25 typewriters and 80 cameras, not to mention an array of colorful trunks and countless books. These, and a handful of other carefully vetted objects like old telephones and gumball machines, are the building blocks of his crisp still lifes.

These aren’t your run of the mill objects— some of his cameras are 120 years old, and Stott doesn’t collect or paint anything made after 1960.

“I’m lucky my wife sees value in everything I collect,” says Stott. “But every so often I’ll come home with a really expensive typewriter, and I’ll get a look like, ‘I hope that doesn’t sit around for three years before you paint it.’”

Rather than exude and evoke nostalgia for yesteryear, Stott’s pieces are matter of fact and straightforward—in positioning and tone. They are almost devoid of emotion, that is, until you start reading between their neat, orderly lines.

“If someone feels a sense of nostalgia that’s fine…I think it’s more a sense of melancholy,” Stott says, adding that the old cameras would often still have film in them. “It was so old it couldn’t be developed, but I would always think of who was using it and what they were doing and the circumstances of why the film was left inside the camera.”

On the surface, the objects are simply beautiful forms. There is something satisfying and soothing in the symmetrical compositions, and the way the shapes fit together—the square trunks and camera cases offset by the circular faces of the clocks and camera lenses—into a visually pleasing arrangement of color, order and form.

The compositions and the act of painting them have a calming effect on the artist as well.

“Living in a world of chaos—from family life and beyond—it seems you can’t control anything,” says Stott. “In my painting practice, I can find a sense of control. I can create a sense of order and tidiness in my paintings. Painting slowly and intentionally is a form of meditation. It’s a calm place that I can actually exist in and when someone looks at my paintings I think they can get that sense of order and calmness as well.”

Stott often works on several pieces at once, allowing the canvases to strike up a dialogue. For instance, Wishing Well and 1938 Royal KHM Typewriter ended up representing different stages of life. The former has a glass full of colored pencils and primary school readers from the 1930s and ’40s; while the latter, with a typewriter and standard graphite pencils, has a more serious, adult feel.

At 40-by-30 inches, the works are slightly larger than life. Although he has been experimenting with aerial views, they are typically presented head-on, on a white shelf under high, bright light, suggestive of a product display. “I’m marrying the old traditions and techniques of the Dutch Masters with a modern advertising aesthetic,” he explains.

Stott’s renderings are a way of honoring these objects and the stories, like secrets, they contain. It extends beyond their appearance into the other sensory qualities associated with them—the musty smell of old books, the sound of a ticking clock, the punch of a typewriter key, the click of a camera, pencil on paper.

“That’s what I want people to see—there’s actually a life to these things,” he says. “[We’re so fixated on the latest technology] we’ve become almost completely blind to the stepping stones that got us here. I think the initial invention is the real breakthrough and then there’s everything that came after.”

American Art Collector Magazine / October 2023

Off to New York City

Everything is framed and shipped to the George Billis Gallery. As I write this, many paintings are in transit, somewhere in the middle of the continent and scheduled to arrive at the gallery in New York on Monday morning.

When the paintings are in transit, I suffer from mild anxiety. It has happened a few times when the heavy-duty packaging has arrived damaged, and I dread to think of how it happens. But 9 times out of 10, everything goes as expected.

The show goes up on the gallery walls on October 3, and the reception is on Thursday, October 5, from 6pm – 8pm.

1926 Royal P Typewriter with Pencil & Black Telephone Receiver / framed

The Key Series

I just completed a series of three paintings for my upcoming exhibition in New York City. Three birds-eye view typewriters.

1928 Underwood Portable Standard Typewriter with Three Pencils / 24 x 36 inches / oil on canvas / 2023

I love painting the mechanical components of the machines.

1964 Olivetti-Underwood Lettera 32 Typewriter with Pencil & Book / 24 x 36 inches / oil on canvas / 2023

There will always be something charming and delightful in typewriters. Each piece is 2 feet tall and three feet wide. The typewriters are all depicted as life-size. My goal with these paintings is to have a viewer almost get a sense of being able to touch and use the typewriters.

1926 Royal P Typewriter with Pencil / 24 x 36 inches / oil on canvas / 2023

When I start each painting, it never fails that I end up slightly overwhelmed at the number of keys I’ve locked myself into painting. I once told someone that my ability to sit quietly and do something as tedious as painting 150 tiny circles and squares is probably the key to why I can paint as much as I do.

New Work for New York

I have been working in the studio every day for the past three months. Well, I did take four days off to visit with family, but I made up for lost time by working in the evenings because I have an upcoming exhibition in New York City with the George Billis Gallery. The show goes up on October 3, and I have just sent the first batch off to the framers. I’m down to the wire finishing up the last few pieces before I can officially relax and come up for air.

In a few weeks, I’ll share the new paintings. This one here won’t be part of the show. It’s already on its way to a collector in New Jersey, as it was sold before it even went to the gallery.

Three Gumball Machines / 40 x 30 inches / oil on canvas / 2023