“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”  -Jeremiah 2:13

Chris Warr: Holding Water features a group of free standing, hanging, and wall mounted sculptures. In each work the artist transforms personal detritus and narrative into chimerical forms that shift between architectural and biomorphic. The raw materials that Warr uses include: pulped blueprints from his fathers plumbing business, 3D printed resin, melted metal and plastic from a fire that destroyed his father’s shop, remnants of friends paintings, sculptures of cartoon heads that the artist has created over the past 15 years, necklaces from a friend’s grandmother, steam bent wood, iPhones, recordings of church songs from the artists’ grandfather, and plumbing pipes. 

The largest sculpture “Nothing’s Ever Done” conflates narratives from multiple traumatic family events through use of found objects, 3d animation, and video. When Warr was a child he almost drowned along the coast of the Baja Peninsula. In an attempt to rescue his son Chris’ father fell off a cliff, breaking his back. In Christmas of 2018 the family property erupted in a mysterious explosion leveling his fathers workshop.These narratives present themselves in fragments, detritus from the fire, renderings of the cliff and water, videos of the artist’s father shuffling through his yard. The objects and narratives join in absurd but considered ways, creating a system of logic, attachment, and organization. 

The term “Holding Water” originates from a passage in the New Testament. In this text broken cisterns serve as a metaphor for false gods and their doctrines and practices. If something “doesn't hold water” the argument or narrative is not logical, reasonable, or true. Holding water may also refer to someone who is swollen, retaining too much liquid, it can also refer to ecological crisis and socio political concerns about access to clean water. In this exhibition many works were created using water, portraying water, or considering the infrastructure used to transport liquids. Most of these sculptures employ objects at one point used in a practical sense. However now these objects are punctured, mixed up, removed from context. The works speak to the sublime chaos of water and the way humans try to control it. 

Chris was born into a non-conforming protestant sect of Christianity known as the Plymouth Brethren. His work is informed by a departure from the church and family, as well as a coming back to it with a different understanding of what form it takes as a vessel. Through holding, disassembling and reassembling narratives and objects, Warr’s works navigate belief, truth, and morality. How do we carry on with baggage from the past? How do we hold and share water with broken vessels?
- Corrie Siegel, October 11, 2022

Chris Warr lives and works in Los Angeles. His work has been shown in the United States and abroad, including: San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA; CEART, Tijuana, Mexico; CEART, Ensenada, Mexico; Orgy Park, NY, New York; Mesa College, San Diego, CA; Actual Size, Los Angeles;  Irvine Fine Arts Center, Irvine, CA; Helmuth Projects, San Diego, CA; SPF15, San Diego, CA; XVY Art Design, San Diego CA. He was the cofounder and Gallery Director of Space4Art, a studio and gallery complex in San Diego California from 2010- 2015. He participated in the Parkfield Residency in 2013 and is a recipient of the UCI UGS grant and the Elizabeth Byolin Award. He received his MFA from the UC Irvine Claire Trevor School of the Arts and his BA from San Diego State University.