CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — One of Chris Kienke’s most recent works of art was an explosion of red, white and blue. Strips of patriotic color and stars burst out of the corner of a gallery room and covered the walls and floor.
The abstract artwork, titled “Flag Bomb,” was exhibited at North Central University in Taiwan in December.
“Flag bombs,” exhibited at North Central University in Taiwan, features a red, white and blue image bursting out of the gallery corner. It took Kienke and Taiwanese students five days to install the 70-foot-long work, printed on vinyl sticker material.
The piece is a continuation of Kienke’s work with images of Americana such as flags, fireworks, hot rods, car culture, the open road, guns – what Kienke calls “patriotism via Fox News.” He seeks to use a critical eye to examine images of patriotism and democracy and to celebrate American strengths, while at the same time asking what it means to be American, how we end up with the images we use to define ourselves as Americans, and what are the consequences of unquestioned nationalism.
Kienke, a University of Illinois art professor, is an abstract painter, but his work now involves integrating digital technology with traditional painting.
“I love all of the possibilities (of abstract painting),” Kienke said. “But it doesn’t always communicate everything I want it to communicate. It doesn’t allow you to comment on the issues of the day.”
Kienke uses the frozen, pixelated images from a TV screen when there’s a glitch in the signal. He found that older technology often fragmented several images at once by chance, and he became intrigued with the combination of the images, as well as the feedback pattern of lines on the screen.
Kienke takes photos of the interrupted images and then edits the ones he likes by cropping them, adjusting the colors and obscuring details he doesn’t want to include. He prints the images on a large piece of canvas and uses acrylic paint to further change the image.
“I can still paint abstractly and think about compositional placement and color,” Kienke said.
He’s been doing this type of work for about six years, under the umbrella title of “Exit Six,” a reference to American road culture.
Kienke’s work includes images of Americana such as flags, guns and cars. He uses photographs of interrupted and pixelated images from a TV screen as the basis for abstract paintings.
“There’s an exit six everywhere there is a road big enough to have numbered exits,” he said. “There’s something peculiarly American about the idea of the road – Jack Kerouac in ‘On the Road,’ the idea that cars give us mobility and freedom.”
He counters that idea of freedom by using images of no-parking signs and other signs that offer prohibitions on action by telling us, “Do Not.”
A series of “Exit Six” pieces, called “The American Dream,” features photographs of an empty pool at a closed motel, “playing on the idea of the American dream and what we see on TV versus what we see in real life.”
One “Exit Six” piece had an image of an American flag, and that led to “Flag Bomb.”
“I started thinking it was like an explosion, and wouldn’t it be amazing if I could actually make it explode?” Kienke said. “Really, I wanted the piece to kind of drift apart, as if you’re blowing dandelion seeds. The image has that kind of sensibility, but it’s grounded in this rigid rectangle. What if I cut the painting up?”
He printed it on vinyl sticker material, cut the painting into strips and spent five days assembling it in the gallery in Taiwan, with the help of students there. At 70 feet, it was the biggest work he’s ever made.
He’ll continue to make artwork with similar themes to exhibit under the title “Hot Rods and Handguns.” Kienke has work on exhibit until Feb. 12 at Monmouth College, and he has upcoming shows at the University of Kentucky in March and at Amos Eno Gallery and Fuchs Projects, both in New York City, in April.
He is interested in pursuing sculpture next, using 21st-century technology. Kienke wants to make a life-size version of his father’s Ford F-150 pickup truck, by scanning and digitally printing the truck.
Editor’s note: To reach Chris Kienke, email kienke@illinois.edu. A time-lapse video shows the installation of “Flag Bombs” over five days at North Central University in Taiwan.
