Chester Arnold: Paintings March 6, 2008

American by birth, but raised in post-war Germany during the formative years of his childhood, painter Chester Arnold regularly delves into the complexities of the human psyche. His compositions present skewed linear perspectives that place the viewer at a remove, above and beyond the unfolding narratives. These visually loaded scenes reveal an extraordinary ability to examine minute details within larger dioramas. Natural landscapes are subverted by his preoccupation with the detritus of human accumulation--cast off tires co-mingle with riverbeds while a rainbow springs up from the filth of a hog pit. Recently selected by Donald Kuspit for New Old Masters at the National Museum in Gdansk, Poland, Arnold's work is also included in the public collections of many institutions, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Pasadena Museum of California Art, and the San Jose Museum of Art.