Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Guarino.
Chris, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Okay, briefly, huh? That’s a tough one, but here we go – I started my art career in Denver in the late 90s doing crude life cast sculptures, but only really started showing my work when I moved to Chicago in 2000. I did shows in Bucktown and Wicker Park, then ended up with a few gallery shows in other parts of the city. I bounced back to Denver in 2005 where I kept my Chicago connections at Echo Gallery, and started showing in the Santa Fe Arts District. I joined a gallery called Fakture, and started learning the art of life casting from an artist working professionally named, Dave Parvin. Through Dave, I met my connection to the world of special effects make up, Todd Debreceni. Through him, I learned the art of sculpting prosthetics for stage and film. Around this time I also got connected with a local welding shop and learned to weld.
All this led to a multitude of gallery shows in different areas of the city, and my eventual connection to a touring steampunk vaudeville act that I eventually began constructing props for and touring with. That led to me working on the props and construction of a stage called the “Stage Stage” for New Belgium Brewery’s Tour de Fat festival. Before leaving Denver for the last time in 2012, I did a lot of the set design, prop and special effects work on an indie film called “Decay.”
Then it was back to Chicago where I joined up with Curly Tail Fine Art Gallery, Gallery Provocateur and participated in a myriad of art festivals. I was commissioned by the Dana Hotel and Spa to create a sculpture for their lobby, and ended up creating the first piece in my Lotus series for them. Since then, the hotel has changed hands and names, but the sculpture is still there.
In 2016, my Dad’s cancer diagnosis brought me to Austin to be closer to him, and I wound up being represented by Ao5 Gallery, as well as having my work being regularly shown at Curia Arcanum on South Congress, and The Clever Tiger Gallery in Elgin. During the eight years I was in Austin I also participated in a slew of group shows around the city and in San Antonio and New Orleans, as well as having some of my work at Art Us Co in the Arboretum.
I currently still have work at Curia Arcanum and The Clever Tiger Gallery despite the fact that I moved back to the Chicago area of Northwest Indiana in 2023. I also frequently participate in shows at Art Us Co.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No, the road has not been smooth. Each time I move across the country I am forced to start over in the town I end up. This has been challenging. I’m grateful I have been able to maintain a lot of my connections to galleries in former cities, but some of those have been lost due to the pandemic or just the passage of time. Being an artist in one place isn’t an easy thing to do. Trying to establish yourself over and over again every seven years just makes it more difficult.
I look to my life casting work as kind of my bread and butter. Of all the artforms I practice, that is the most marketable. Still, with each move, I need to get the word out and rebuild my client base. I have had people fly from across the country to have me create something for them, but those are exceptional cases. Most of my clients are local, and finding them can be a challenge.
It’s also hard to establish yourself somewhere new without a public, or at least semi public studio. For a while, in Austin, I had a spot at Thorton Road Studios, and it was great. There was a great community of artists there, and we had open studios and art walks semi regularly. Now that my studio is in my house, I miss that community and public exposure.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I would consider myself a multidisciplinarian. I’m a sculptor, a digital artist, a life caster and a writer.
Life casting is the art of making a mold from a part of a person’s body and creating a sculpture from it. In this discipline, I create a lot of pieces of couples holding hands for anniversary gifts. I cast a lot of pregnant bellies, and babys’ hands and feet. I also do a lot of body casting. Occasionally I will get a call from a family member requesting I do casting work of their recently deceased loved one. This is definitely the most emotionally challenging thing I do, and it always means so much to the ones left behind.
As a sculptor, I’m best known for the odd “Little Imperfections” sculptures I’ve made. Most of my sculpture work is slightly bizarre, but that series is the weirdest. They are quirky amalgamations of discarded parts combined to make something new. They are fun to create, and each one tells a story. They are also therapeutic. For me, each one is a lesson in letting go.
Of everything I do, the novel I am currently working on is what I am most proud of. It is a fantasy novel that weaves a narrative around all the other artwork I have created. If you look at my Masquerade Series and take all the sculptures I’ve made as concept art, you’ll get a pretty good idea about the world I’m creating with the book. It is definitely the project I have been working on the longest. I’m not sure if it will end up as one long novel, or if I will eventually break it up into a series of shorter books. I do know that I am close to the end, so if anyone has any connections to the publishing world – let me know!
What’s next?
The recent move north was a pretty big change, but despite what I said earlier about the difficulties of starting over in a new place all the time, I don’t think I’m done moving yet. I’ve always pictured myself in the Pacific Northwest, and I resonate more with that part of the country than any other. I imagine I will be there within the next five years.
As far as art is concerned, I want to finish my novel, get it published, and then start working on some larger sculptures. I keep telling myself I need to apply for more public art grants, but I never do it. That’s one big change I’d like to make.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.chrisguarino.com
- Instagram: @artworkofchrisguarino
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artworkofchrisguarino
- Other: https://bsky.app/profile/artofchrisguarino.bsky.social
Image Credits
Portrait credit goes to Toney Moreno (Darkmode ATX) Instagram@darkmode.photo
