OMAR CHACON | OHIO CRIOLLO

Margaret Thatcher Projects is pleased to present OHIO CRIOLLO, an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Omar Chacon. This marks Chacon’s fourth solo exhibition at the gallery, and is an homage to the scholarly and familial influences that have impacted his art making practice throughout his career.
The term “Criollo” is defined as an individual with origins in Central or South America, particularly those of pure Spanish descent. The exhibition title, OHIO CRIOLLO, acknowledges the intersection of his Colombian culture and his socio-cultural experiences while living in America.

OHIO CRIOLLO is a harkening back to the artists’ undergraduate and graduate studies in color theory, under the tutelage of painter Steve McCallum. More specifically, the works in this exhibition reference an ongoing dialogue between Chacon and McCallum; analyzing the orchestration of color, while studying and admiring the boundless potential of its use.

In OHIO CRIOLLO, Chacon explores variant methods of color application and placement, drawing upon the inspiration of one of his grandfather’s paintings, which is reverently displayed in his studio; having noted that the discovery of his grandfather’s artwork made his intuitive sense of abstraction all the more relevant in his own work. New works on paper feature a delicate scattering of dots and drips of color, likening some of the compositions to a celestial landscape.

Omar Chacon’s continued layering and collaging of acrylic dots and drips on canvas is more than a visual strategy for making a painting. Each gesture conceptually counts as a unique individual in a large and diverse community, each reliant on the other to flourish.

Omar Chacon was born in Bogota, Colombia. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, CA and his BFA from the Ringling College of Art and Design, FL. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in cities such as Los Angeles, Milan, San Franciso and Mexico City. Recently, Chacon participated in exhibitions at the Children’s Museum of the Arts in New York, NY and the Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, AL. In 2009, Chacon was selected as part of the Queens International Four at the 2009 Biennial at the Queens Museum of Art, New York. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2007 William and Dorothy Yeck Award through the Miami University National Young Painters Competition and the 2008 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. His paintings have been reviewed in Art & Antiques, Artnet, Art in America and Artweek Magazine, among others.