Chris Christion
Chris Christion has a research-driven art practice offering inclusiveness, cultural humility, and advocacy as necessary tools for reconsidering how one defines their experienced identity. He has exhibited multimedia video works and installations in solo and group exhibitions as well as film festivals including Eastside International (ESXLA), Los Angeles, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture Riverside Museum of Art, Riverside, CA. Steppling Art Gallery, San Diego CA, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA, and Every Day Epic, a Juneteenth Film Program with Queer Film Continuum, Plaza District, & Nappy Roots in Tulsa, OK
Biography
Christion is committed to engaging with underrepresented and underserved communities who often do not see themselves reflected within the broader art community. He actively engages in workshops and discussions designed to provide context for critical dialectic and address the nuances within ever-shifting identities and how we experience/create our contemporary world and culture. In 2019 Chiristion's work was included in the Mexicali Biennial CALAFIA: Manifesting the Terrestrial Paradise exhibition series, Exhibition Catalog, and included as part of the Library of Congress Research Guides, “El Otro Lado” (The Other Side): Border Art Histories of the MexiCali Biennial. The video collage The Unauthorized Histography of California Vol 1. is an exploration of familial history in relation to the complicated cultural development of California as a state. The project has since developed into a collaboration with artist/curator Jessica Wimbley which has produced public art projects, publications, and curriculum.
Since 2015 Wimbley and he have managed the curatorial project Biomythography. Defined by author Audre Lorde Biomythography is a literary concept that weaves myth, history, and biography into the epic narrative. The project engages students and patrons in exhibitions, workshops, and public programs that address interdisciplinary perspectives, and the nuances within ever-shifting identities, and discuss how we experience/create our contemporary world and culture.
Christion currently lives and works in Sacramento, CA. He received his MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and his BFA from the University of Oklahoma. In 2012 he was awarded a Certificate of Leadership from Academic Museums and Gallery Leadership Seminar at Northwestern University.