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  Chris Costan
Reviews
  Montage Opening Reception: Thursday, September 14. 6–8pm
September 14–November 4, 2000.
In a review of Chris Costan's 1998 solo show at Cheryl Pelavin Fine Art (CPFA), Joel Silverstein wrote;

1 "In paintings that are ostensibly abstract Costan is able to imply a palpably figurative subtext, one that points to the fractured nature of the contemporary psyche."For this exhibition the artist has put aside her large-scale paintings, surrendered to the joys of cutting and pasting paper, to create a series of intimate and unpredictable montages. Silverstein's statement is now inverted; the ostensibly figurative now implies an abstract subtext. Costan's career started in Chicago then moved to New York's East Village and Soho in the 1980's. Her connection to CPFA goes back to 1986 when she was invited to do a monotype suite for Pelavin Editions. She started with a painted plate and then added collaged elements that she had photo copied onto Japanese handmade papers. Old magazine ads touting kitchen appliances, visions of the wonders of modern science and industry, early magical scientific drawings, indigenous patterns and lately instructive images from cartoon manuals are all sources of inspiration for this work. About this series the artist says;
    "These montages are the result of visual, intellectual and intuitive problem solving. When completed the process creates order out of the cacophony of the mind's stream of conscious, as well as the mundane of the everyday life. The predominantly monochromatic ordering of visual and symbolic elements reveals an attempt to sort out the dense hothouse that is 'thought,' combined with the navigation's of the 'thinker,' in the physical world."

Ms. Costan received a New York Foundation for the Arts grant in 1999.


1 Cover Magazine, "Chris Costan" Vol. 12, #5, page 40-41, October 1998