Elijah Burgher. Excremental Philosophy Illustrated, Vol. 1, 2013; colored pencil on paper; 19 in. x 24 in. Courtesy of Western Exhibitions.

Excremental Philosophy Illustrated, Vol. 1 (2013) is a lexicon of invented symbols arranged over fields of vibrant color. A row of simple forms in the upper portion of the image begins with a circle, a square, and a triangle, then progresses into more varied combinations of geometry, arrows, and wheels. The rest of the composition is broken up into columns of varying width that contain increasingly complex groupings of coded signs. Some look slightly familiar, like stylized eyes, beach balls, or an Apple computer’s “spinning wheel of death,” maybe even a doorway or window. Those associations are mostly subjective, as Burgher’s imagery betrays no obvious referent.

These ambiguous symbols feel old and new at the same time. Originally, I associated them with Roman and medieval banners, alchemy, the Buddha’s Wheel of the Law, and the occult symbols from Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album (you know, the one with “Stairway”). In the show’s press release, Burgher’s symbols are described as “sigils,” which are signs associated with different forms of magic dating back to the Renaissance, and maybe earlier—there’s really no hard limit to the historical record when it comes to magical thinking. There is also no standard catalog of sigils; they are custom-designed for the personal wish fulfillment of whoever made them, though formally, modern sigils are often derived from mixing diverse iconographic sources like family crests, the Kabbalah, Eastern philosophies, and the stories of H.P. Lovecraft. Excremental Philosophy Illustrated, Vol. 1’s symbol combinations and saturated colors exist somewhere between a new illuminated manuscript, a map of spells, and a child’s board game with no clear instructions.

Elijah Burgher. Sick Sun, Sick Sun, 2013; acrylic on canvas drop cloths; 9 x 6 ft. Courtesy of Western Exhibitions.

With the concept of invented magic in mind, “excremental philosophy” becomes a critical pun about shit ideas, shit values, and shit beliefs. The homophonic possibilities of a piece titled Sick Sun, Sick Sun (2013), one of the large, canvas drop-cloth paintings hanging in the center of the gallery, suggest both a radiating orb of illness and the existential damage of boyhood. The stained banner looks like a faded tie-dye blanket that someone backed a car over. The upper half is marked with a black, circular sigil surrounded by hooks or question marks. The lower half contains another circle divided into four wedges of color. If the artist’s titles are slightly tongue-in-cheek, his commitment to exploring the formal possibilities of invented iconography is bona fide. Bachelor Machine, From Behind and Below (Guyotat Version) is a looser sketch of symbol ideas and color combinations. Burgher’s vocabulary of signs and symbols is fully formed and still feels fresh—at the same time meaningful and abstract.

Elijah Burgher. In the Horny Deeps Below Finding, 2013; colored pencil on paper; 17 in. x 14 in. Courtesy of Western Exhibitions.

Nude men are the only common representational theme of the show. In a drawing titled In the Horny Deeps Below Finding (2013), two highly rendered figures occupy a sparse interior with large sigils covering the walls. Psychologically and physically, the nudes appear estranged. They stand on opposite sides of a doorway and their gazes do not meet, though one man rests his hand on a nearby wall in a gesture that suggests longing. Bachelor Machine (2013) plays toward more obvious eroticism. Here, a grid of colors, shapes, and symbols serves as a backdrop for a full-length reclining nude with an erection. Burgher’s detailed description of men’s bodies, articulated right down to the hair on their legs and bellies, suggests a level of care and consideration that the pictures struggle live up to. Oddly enough, the artist’s commitment to realism (in a show about magical thinking, nonetheless) suffocates the mystery within these pictures.

Elijah Burgher. Portrait of Jhon Balance as Talisman Against Suicide, 2013; colored pencil on paper; 19 in. x 24 in. Courtesy of Western Exhibitions.

By comparison, two portraits—one of a sweetly rendered blond boy ironically titled Lucifer (2013), the other reclining with the profile of an idealized Roman emperor called Portrait of Jhon Balance as Talisman Against Suicide (2013)—carry a smoldering erotic charge. Descriptive without getting academic, these pictures speak through emotion with strangeness worthy of Piero della Francesca. Their heads become symbols themselves, more like ideas than people. The show is hardly perfect. But in his best pieces, Burgher digs into something old and deep to break the connection between seeing and knowing.

Friendship as a Way of Life b/w I’m Seeking the Minotaur is on view at Western Exhibitions in Chicago through December 7, 2013.

Deb Sokolow, Chapter 5. They meant for it to fail., 2011, graphite and acrylic on paper mounted to panel, 30x22", courtesy of Western Exhibitions

“People don’t like to read art.” It’s the sort of self-deprecating, tongue in cheek, slightly hipster-ish title you’d expect from a show featuring just such a group of young artists. “We acknowledge not everyone will enjoy this text+art stuff. And we don’t care, because we say it’s important.” But taken a bit less literally, as I had initially interpreted the title, it gets at the idea that people don’t like to derive meaning, to decipher, art. So in this way, perhaps the language in these text-based pieces helps us derive meaning more concretely; the verbage helps us “read” the works more deeply.

Kirsten Stoltmann, You Will Never Be Punk, 2011, oil paint Sharpie on magazine pages, 10x8", courtesy of Western Exhibitions

The offering in Western Exhibition’s group show sweeps the spectrum in terms of media—collage, drawing, sculpture, video, artist books. And in terms of voice as well. The labored, meditative collages of Meg Hitchcock, each one fashioned from thousands of tiny cut-out squares of individual type are juxtaposed against Kirsten Stoltmann’s loud, sharply funny, colorful sharpie drawings on pages from fashion magazines. One of her models declares, “To fart or not to fart.,” as she looks oh so forlorn with her hand to her cheek. Cat Glennon’s “Fuck This” spelled out with cigarette butts and her “You Don’t Need to Read It” in which the words “you don’t need to read into it, you just need to read it” overlaid with a check from a greasy spoon, dead matches, and playing cards, speak of grungy coffee shop angst.

Meg Hitchcock, detail of In the Day of My Trouble (Psalm 86), 2009, letters cut from the Chandogya Upanishad, 12x8", courtesy of Western Exhibitions

Simon Evans’s pyramid-shaped sculpture, “Monument for Sun Related Events,” is one of the most startlingly intimate pieces in the exhibit. Lined, yellow legal paper covers the pyramid, affixed to which are snippets of hand-written text. An inner world emerges in sentence fragments. Somehow these thoughts, memories really, are a stream-of-consciousness confessional, and at the same time, they’re so familiar you can almost recall, from your own past, the moments he spins forth. It was such a guilty pleasure to read, as if peeking into someone’s diary.

Simon Evans, Monument for Sun Related Events, 2008, pyramidal sculpture covered in lined yellow legal paper with blue and red ball point pen, 28x20x20", courtesy of Western Exhibitions

Whatever an art lover’s appetite for “reading,” whether compelled by a quick glance that packs a punch aesthetically or by more of an in-depth verbal communion with the pieces, from bubble gum beach fiction to heavy tomes of autobiography, the work in this show provides for all preferences, except of course for those people who really don’t like to read art.

“People don’t like to read art” is on view at Western Exhibitions in Chicago through August 13.

Ryan Travis Christian, “Optical Illusion #4 (Sad Sacks)”, 2011 / Image courtesy of Guerrero Gallery

Seth Curcio: So Ryan, It is good to finally chat with you! You know, I first came across your work about two years ago in Los Angles at the now closed Synchronicity art space – across the street from one of the best ice cream spots in the world, Scoops. I was there with a good friend of mine and he was raving about your drawings. Since then, I have kept my eye on your projects as they pop up in galleries all over the country. There has been a lot of development in your work over the past few years and your visual vocabulary is constantly expanding, evolving, co-opting and consuming. Walk me through the process of creating one of your drawings. Do you approach it purely through intuition or are they carefully planned from the start? I have read that you create an abstract problem for yourself and then solve the problem during creation…. this sounds really interesting, but exactly what does it mean?

Ryan Travis Christain: Likewise! Haha, for the record… Synchronicity (run by two near and dear friends of mine) is re-opening kitty corner from their old location in a freestanding building facing Scoops, & now that you mention it, i could really go for a scoop of pear ice cream, damn that place is good.

Anyhow, as far as approaching a drawing goes, I’ve been writing a lot of brief little notes to myself on scraps of paper, stories, memories, phrases I’m fond of. These scraps are everywhere! I like to sit on them for awhile and see what comes back to me a second or third time, figuring there’s some sort of extra weight to that.

Taking said idea, I then begin to build up a surface on the paper, there are a decent amount of layers beneath the finished product. The “abstract problem” is more or less a mess that I’m forcing myself to respond to. Expressive mark making, rubbings, or even something like a big fat x in the center of the picture plane, provide me with a loose structure that I can begin to plug my vocabulary into. It’s nice to be able to retain some of the gestural quality of the “problem” and have that interact with the concrete visual elements. It definitely gives the drawings some sort of energy.

New Bikini Jam #2″, Graphite on Paper, 2011 / Image courtesy of Guerrero Gallery

I’ve made it a point to stop pre-conceiving a specific image to achieve. I used to drive myself crazy that way, trying to meet my brain’s own high standards. I feel like that kind of sucks the fun out of it, as opposed to just seeing what happens. I think that’s a really great way to go about making something, you can stumble across all sorts of things that way and often surprise yourself. There is a lot of of freedom in this approach. I read recently that Cormac McCarthy tackles his writing in a similar fashion.

SC: So what are some examples of the phrases that you write down? There is a definite dark humor that permeates your work. Do the phrases contain humor too, or are they totally random? Also, I want to know more about your visual vocabulary. Where do you pull your sources? And, is anything up for grabs?

RTC: Oh man, the phrases are infinite, they are pulled form everywhere, I probably use about 1% of them overall. Sometimes they are humorous, sometimes totally random. Some examples are “juice loosener”,”walks in forrest, sleeps in the river”, “wooden mexican”, “dramamine”, “old dro”, “snake men”, “demon bag” (these are ones visible from where I’m typing). I guess they’re probably funnier to me since I know what they specifically reference, but I’m not trying to be funny, I just want to retain these fleeting thoughts and 2-3 word phrases do the trick quite nicely. It also happens that some of these “ideas” are just actually funny, humor trumps beauty in my mind as far as eliciting an emotional response from a viewer and I’ve always been most drawn toward humorous work.

Ryan Travis Christian, “Binocular View #2″, Graphite on Paper, 2010 / Image courtesy of Guerrero Gallery

Yeah, anything is up for grabs, I don’t see any point in limiting myself to a specific set of sources, but I do definitely tend to wind up gravitating toward certain things repeatedly. I find myself wanting to draw cars, sex, homes, lawn care based activities, and vague landscapes/shallow spaces the most. I guess these are the things I think about/recall most often and the landscapes/spaces are perfect stages to place the narrative. Narrative wise my source is mainly memory, object wise my source is also mainly memory, but from time to time I’ll steel someone’s story or print out a picture of a rose to draw from. Thought I’ve noticed as time goes by, other sources start to creep in slowly and become a staple part of the vocabulary. So it’s constantly evolving, at glacial speeds.

SC: That’s interesting. I usually link words like car, homes and lawn care to suburban culture. These are all mundane activities and objects that fill basic suburban life. Yet I feel that there is also an anxious feeling of being trapped in some sort of bad dream, where absurdity takes over seemingly innocent activities — maybe this too is a product of suburban culture! It’s evident in works like Creepers #1 where a typical backyard melts into a subversive landscape. Since you mentioned the source of your narratives being based mainly in memory, I have to ask, what happened to you in the past that led to these types of visual stories?

RTC: Spot on! The surburbs (where I grew up and still live) are like a bad dream or a weird one at least. You have rural and urban influence, lots of space, redundant store scapes and infinite neighborhoods. Suburban culture is fucking boring when you are young and angst-y, it forces you to make your own fun. You have to hang out in the forrest or sneak out and run around at night and be absurd. When your town or city or whatever isn’t brimming with garbage and filled with hobos and police sirens, happenings are much more noticeable.

But suburban lifestyle aside, I feel that story telling is the highest form of art, drinking beer with friend comes in a close second Marioni!. So that’s what I do, take the best ones and draw em’. I don’t usually broadcast what a drawing is specifically about, I like that people can make their own associations with the imagery, but since you asked nicely, I’ll tell you one.

Ryan Travis Christian, “Creepers #1″, Graphite on Paper, 2010 / Image courtesy of Guerrero Gallery

Creepers #1 happened on Halloween of 2001, at the time we had these neighbors who were total crabapples, a real miserable middle-aged couple, the entire block would agree with me on this statement. My parents and I were returning from an early dinner and kids were all over the place trick or treating. As we pulled into our driveway, I briefly glanced at my neighbors house. It took me a second to realize something was off about what I just saw. When I looked again, I noticed a face looming in these two large trees that are situated on the corner of their house. It wasn’t a familiar face either, it was this perverted crumby looking old man, just hiding in the bushes in broad daylight. I realized 2 things immediately, a) this guy was up to no good ( I know this, being someone who has hid in the bushes many times) and b) I had the opportunity to catch this weirdo and maybe whip his ass (taking the law into my own hands is kind of a fantasy of mine). So, i pointed at him and screamed “Hey you”. He jumped out of the bushes. My neighbor was handing candy out and screamed when she saw this. He sprinted between our houses into the backyard and toward a busy road that runs behind our street. I ran into the garage and grabbed a baseball bat, ran out the side door and chased him down the road, I got so close too! But I failed, he wanted it more than me I guess. The neighbor lady had called the police while this was all happening and they showed up pretty quickly, telling us that this was one of multiple calls they received about a guy creeping in the area.

Ryan Travis Christian, “X2Go2Work!”, Graphite on Paper / Image courtesy of Guerrero Gallery

SC: HA! What a priceless story. Thanks for sharing the background. The suburbs can definitely breed the most absurd happenings. I can see how these personal stories are rich with the content that can fuel your work. I’m also interested in your aesthetics. There is an amazing fragmentation in your work that allows for multiple references to appear simultaneously. It is evident that you absorb a lot from contemporary art and culture and subvert it for you own purpose. I’m curious about the artists that you are interested in right now, the art history that you keep coming back to and in general, things that have been captivating your attention as of late?

RTC: My pleasure, there’s lots more where that came from. I interviewed Ben Jones a long time ago and he said it better than I ever could… “It takes only the most ballin’ original tightest visual shit possible… I want to see fucking mint ass visual shit and then and only then will I approve/steal it”.

Doing the whole blog thing and curating and just looking at a lot of art in general, I’ve developed a very specific taste for elements I think work best, and like any artist, you can look at their work and probably develop a complex diagram of where everything they made came from. It’s constantly changing too. Current artists would include but isn’t limited to: Paper Rad, Marissa Textor, Mike Rea, Bjorn Copeland, Scott and Tyson Reeder, Jose Lerma, Geoffrey Todd Smith, Eddie Martinez, Eric Yahnker, Allison Schulnik, Ben Stone, Deb Sokolow, Cleon Peterson, Ben Stone, Xylor Jane, Andrew Schoultz, Joseph Hart, Chris Duncan, Samantha Bittman, Garth Weiser, Lightning Bolt, Hilary Pecis, Evan Gruzis, Glen Baldridge, Michael Krueger, Chris Johanson, Joe Roberts, Adam Scott, Cory Arcangel, Ann Toebbe, CF, Scott Wolniak, this list could seriously go on forever… Older inspiration comes from; Conlon Nancarrow, Guston, De Kooning, Archibald Motley, Ub Iwerks, Bruce Bickford, The Hairy Who, George Condo, Ray Yoshida, this could go on forever too. More than anything, I ideally want to be able to do for future generations what these people have done for me, which is make me believe that art isn’t totally stupid. If there’s a name you don’t recognize, please google it.

Ryan Travis Christian, “Jailbirds”, Graphite on Paper, 2010 / Image courtesy of Guerrero Gallery

SC: In your current exhibition Sad Sacks at Guerrero Gallery in San Francisco, you have produced an epic-scaled drawing as well as a collaborative work with Chris Duncan. It seems that you are certainly interested in expanding your practice. Beyond furthering your intricate drawings, do you have any projects or exhibitions plans that are outside of your current method of working?

RTC: I’ve been doing the smaller scale/ super tight drawings for a couple years now and I’m going to continue that. But there are a lot of other things that I want to pursue, probably too many. After knocking out that big one @ Guerrero in 2 days (the biggest thing I’ve done thus far), I’m definitely jazzed to be back home in the studio with an extra added energy. Next month I’ll be doing two more massive wall pieces, one with Western Exhibitions at the MDW Fair and the other at the Co-Prosperity Sphere, both here in Chicago. I’ve been dj’ing thematic sets recently with Club Nutz (the worlds smallest comedy club) and will continue to do that as much as possible. Also trying to acquire a full on drum kit to execute some music I’ve had in my head for a minute now. I’ve been juggling around some sculpture/video ideas and also have been attempting to make paintings of my drawings, ideally in 5 years from now I’d like to have the option of taking an idea I have and being able to execute it in any medium, while maintaining a certain caliber. Also developing a hand drawn animation a la’ 1930’s style, which won’t be finished for a long time! Trying to run the gauntlet…

Ryan Travis Christian “Freewheelers”, Graphite on paper / Image courtesy of Guerrero Gallery

Concerning the collaboration with Duncan, that was amazing, but that’s because he’s a force of nature! I’ve been doing collabs for a short amount of time, sometimes they ‘re lemons other times they blow your mind. I think it’s important for like minded artists to collaborate, it’s just another way to communicate/bond/learn from one another, plus it’s a lot of fun. I’ve done some with Eric Yahnker, Alexis Mackenzie, Dana Dart- Mclean and Chris, thus far. I have a nice list of about 15-20 folks that I’ll be working with over the next 6 months, which will culminate in a project space show at Western Exhibitions in October alongside my debut solo show with them. Got a big curatorial project in the mix and a book project based on what could be my gnarliest story ever! Plus a bunch of group shows between now and mid 2012 all over the country and abroad. Keep your eyes peeled for Ryan Wallace‘s upcoming curatorial project based on the idea of “home” that’s coming up in May, it will be a game changer. I signed up for a summer golf league. I feel like when I type all of this shit, I’m begging the cosmos to splatter my face with egg. It’s only a matter of time until you read about my head exploding.