Chris Dorland is a Canadian/American artist working at the intersection between painting and new media.
His studio practice is based on the establishment of a dialogue between analog and digital techniques, through which the artist analyzes the ramifications of human modes of perception and existence within contemporary societies of control.
With a particular emphasis on examining the ways in which surveillance technologies perceive, record and reproduce reality, Dorland uses a variety of screens, drones and other optical devices to compose images that explore the increasingly tenuous boundaries between physical and digital environments, actual and virtual realities. The distorted and glitching imagery of his paintings, digital collages and films addresses the unresolved tension between technological utopia and post-capitalistic chaos, evoking a dystopian vision of the human-built world through the sublimated violence of abstraction, consumerism and technology.
Chris Dorland (b. 1978, Canada) lives and works in New York, USA.
Selected solo exhibitions include Museum gegenstandsfreier Kunst, Otterndorf, DE (upcoming – 2026); Clone Repo (server ruin) NıCOLETTı, London, UK (2025); Art Brussels with Super Dakota, BE (2024); Shellcode, Lyles & King, New York, US (2023); Protocol, Super Dakota, Brussels, BE (2021); New Day, Lyles & King, New York, US (2021); Active User & FLR-13, NıCOLETTı, London, UK (2020); Synthetic Skin, Super Dakota, Brussels, BE (2019); Sun Stalker, Aetopoulos, Athens, GR (2018); Civilian, Lyles & King, New York, US (2019); Density Build, Practise, Chicago, US (2017); Happiness Machines, Super Dakota, Brussels, BE (2016); and Entertainment Hardware, Museo Nacional De Bellas Artes, Santiago, CL (2014).
Dorland has been included in group exhibitions at New Museum, New York, US; Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, US; Eyes Never Sleep, New York, USA (2025); Anonymous Gallery, Mexico DF, MX; Marianne Boesky, New York, US; L’INCONNUE, Montreal, CA; Super Dakota, Brussels, BE; Lyles & King, New York, US; and VOR GOTT IST ALLE KUNST SCHEISSE, curated by David Ostrowski, Dusseldorf, DE. His work has been shown at Frieze New York; Liste Art Fair; Art Brussels; and NADA Miami.
Dorland’s work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, US; Bronx Museum of Art, New York, USA; Neuberger Museum of Art, New York, USA; Microsoft Art Collection, USA; Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, USA; Soho House Collection, UK; and Sigg Art Foundation, FR.
