Take in brand new exhibitions at The Art Studio, Inc. on the first Saturday of each month! Join us Saturday May 3rd for the opening reception of our 2024 TASIMJAE Winner’s solo exhibition:
“Divergent Narratives” by Christopher Troutman in the Main Gallery
The reception is free and open to the public from 7:00-10:00pm. Drinks and refreshments provided. The artist will be in virtual attendance via a live feed from Miyakonojo, Japan.
The artwork will be on view during TASI’s regular hours (Tuesdays through Saturdays from 12pm-5pm) until May 24th. There is no admission fee to visit The Art Studio and its galleries.
Artist Bio
Christopher Troutman was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in Peoria, Illinois. After earning a BFA at Bradley University in 2003, he and his wife opened a conversational English school in Kagoshima City, Japan. He was the first foreign resident of Kagoshima to be awarded the Grand Prize at the 52nd Kagoshima Prefectural Art Exhibition in 2005. After completing his MFA at California State University, Long Beach in 2008, Troutman taught drawing and painting at Eastern Kentucky University, followed by Vincennes University, Eastern Illinois University, and Lamar University, where he taught all levels of Drawing, and a few other classes, from 2013-2024. Currently, Troutman resides in Miyakonojo Japan, working as an artist and art educator at his studio, Level Up: Art and English Studio. Troutman uses imagery from his experiences living in the Midwest, Southern Japan, and Beaumont, Texas, the three locations that have had a formative influence on his continuing body of work.
Artist Statement
Drawing and painting are my primary means of expression. In my artwork, I have continually looked for ways to combine studio art and illustration, with an interest in American comic books. In my drawings and paintings, I depict the human figure in contemporary urban and domestic environments, with an emphasis on composition and the passage of time as a means to engage audiences. Furthermore, I use composition and narrative to demonstrate that everyday visual experiences can be compelling subject matter for exploration in drawing, painting, and illustration.
In my large-scale artwork, I have used polyptychs to divide artwork into sections in order to make comparisons between the different places I have lived, such as the Midwest, Southern Japan, and Southeast Texas, depicting subjects inspired by my family’s experiences in these places. Additionally, I have used panels, borrowed from comics, to divide images into parts, enhancing narrative and storytelling.
In this exhibition I will show a variety of bodies of artwork, ranging from artwork that I have taken a break from in the past two years to current series, as well as series/projects that I plan to continue into the next few years. These bodies of work include paintings that depict subject matter combined from my imagination and photo references, drawings and paintings from direct observation of my environment in Miyakonojo, drawing installation, large-scale comic book pages, and comic book pages of a conventional scale. With this exhibition I am curious to see if all of these series have a similarity between them or if it is a challenge to see connections between them at all. These bodies of work give a view of my varying interests at the movement, and I am curious to see which ones will continue as future projects.
I grew up in the Midwest, and most of my time growing up was in a suburb of Peoria, Illinois called Dunlap. My parents, friends, and art educators always encouraged me artistically. My mother taught accounting at Bradley University in Peoria, and before entering the art program there, I received a lot of encouragement from staff and faculty at Bradley. As an undergrad, I wanted to study comics, which is what got me interested in art to begin with in high school. Sam Kieth’s, the Maxx, is what got me drawing. Getting fan art published in his monthly books encouraged me to take making art seriously. Once I was in college I was drawn into art history courses, with the most interest in 19th century artists, like Edgar Degas and Henri Tolouse-Lautrec. At that time, I had befriended the Chicago-area comic book artist, Frank Fosco, who often gave advice to me on comics when my father and I would visit the Wizard Con Chicago. Because of his advice for how to maintain viewer interests by varying the vantage point between comic panels to advance a story, I would imagine how Degas’ artworks’ vantage points were similar to the shifting points of view within comic pages.
I failed to enter graduate school in 2003, so I followed my soon-to-be fiance to Japan and through some unexpected events, she and I ended up owning our own conversational English school. Entering exhibitions after completing my BFA gave me focus, so I was able to build a portfolio by responding to judges at regional exhibitions. I also discovered that I did not have the skill or experience to paint or draw the way I wanted, so I knew that I had to go to graduate school. With some political strategizing, after meeting one of the non-figurative drawing/painting faculty at CSULB, I was able to earn that last vote to be accepted into their MFA program, which I started in fall 2006. I was able to work with Domenic Cretara and Yu Ji, who were both my close mentors. I was grateful to learn what I could in that short two-year timespan. The content of their program is what I wanted to teach as a university art professor, and I contributed to their legacy at Lamar University, where I learned so much about art, design, and academics. I continue that legacy at my studio now. I learned a lot about service to the community from the Art Studios Inc., which is something I continue with community events in Miyakonojo City, and I hope I can bring Beaumont and Miyakonojo together somehow in the future through the public’s engagement in art.
I plan on showing a varied collection of artwork from the past year that I have been developing in my studio in Miyakonojo, as well as some artwork that I have not shown in Beaumont yet.
The first series was inspired by the painting that won best of show in the TASMJAE in 2024. In that series, I wanted to focus on simple compositions with few figures while including a Southeast Texas environment. Another goal was to maintain a somewhat cinematic appearance yet continue some past compositional conventions from my work, so there is variety in that series itself. Unfortunately, the painting that won the prize at TASMJAE came together quickly. All the subsequent paintings in that series feel a little forced, so it’s been a bit frustrating.
The second series is one about observational drawing and painting on site in Miyakonojo, where I painted in my studio and eventually outdoors. What is unique about the series is that I am drawing and painting 5-point perspective from direct observation, inspired by the sketchbooks of Paul Heaston, however, I wanted to work at a much larger scale. It is a series that I plan on continuing in the future.
A third series consists of drawings from a few years ago that I have not shown in the US yet. They are large-scale comic spreads for an in-progress graphic novel about my family living between the US and Japan. I began the series when I was on leave from Lamar University in fall 2021 when my family and I were living in Miyakonojo. I’ve had to take some time away from that series, as it needs some more careful development.
Apart from the artwork created for exhibition, I have an in-progress graphic novel called Dinosaur Prison Gangs. It is an idea that Thomas Schrepfer, my writer, and I have been playing with for about 10 years, but once in Japan, I thought I should work on it in as focused a way as I could, among all of these other projects. My goal is to finish inking and coloring the first 40 pages for a Kickstarter in fall 2025.
Lastly, if it works out, I may also send pages from a short children’s book that my family and I worked on the story for. It is called How to Build a Forest. I was encouraged by working on the book and I get a lot of fun ideas from working with my students here. Hopefully, I can figure out how to put these ideas onto paper sooner than later.
I think my artwork has always been something stuck between illustration and fine art, so I have a variety of ways of working. In my drawings and paintings for exhibition, for years I worked to try to build figures and environments from memory and imagination yet have them be believable, which I had fantasized was what comic artists did in their studios. That gave my paintings and drawings an unusual character that I thought didn’t look academic enough, so I’ve debated how to use references, observation, and invention in an effective way.
Strange points of view from comic panels inspire some vantage points in my work, as well as dividing artwork into panels as a means for telling stories, which I also do with actual comic book pages. In the past, I’ve also used these divisions to juxtaposed imagery from Japan and the US, including Southeast Texas. Most stories that I tell are based on my family’s experiences living between two cultures, unless the story is about building a forest or a dinosaur in prison.
I think Sam Kieth got me started drawing the Maxx at least 1,000 times, and then experimenting with other materials. Frank Fosco’s guidance also influenced how I would try to see how comics and fine art could work together. My teachers at Bradley were encouraging but Domenic Cretara and Yu Ji had the most impact on my art and teaching. My art colleagues at Lamar, and students, inspired me to try new things and move my art in new directions and made me feel like I could learn anything and then do anything I wanted. In art history, I like Edgar Degas, Edward Hopper, and recently the mark making of Van Gogh. I revere Kim Jung Gi’s ability to invent and Paul Heaston’s ability to take Betty Edwards’ “Basic Unit” and intuitively apply it to bending observed space into 5-point perspective drawings. There are a lot more artists I like or take inspiration from, but I should stop right now.
I want people to have a good time and hopefully see a connection between my illustrations and drawings and paintings, and possibly see that there is a lot of overlap between these two ways of working. I think with fine art, there needs to be an unknown that you’re working towards and a flexibility to take artwork where it needs to go, allowing a sense of discovery in the process and to find something new. In illustration, I feel like there is a plan to follow and the imagery is made to reflect that plan, but in the process of making, there are always unexpected things that happen and problems to solve, letting you find a few new things as well.
I want to thank Greg Busceme Sr. for his kindness and support for so many years and the Art Studios Incorporated for supporting my various projects. I want to continue to work with Greg and TASI as I continue to work on my connections to the community in Miyakonojo. I want to stay connected to Beaumont, Texas, so I want to continue to collaborate with TASI, Lamar University, and my other colleagues in art in Beaumont, like Stephanie Orta and many others, on future projects.
This project is funded in part by the B.A. & E.W. Steinhagen Benevolent Trust through the Southeast Texas Arts Council, Edaren Foundation, Walmart Foundation, and Jefferson County – BeaumontCVB.com
