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 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).
Selected group exhibitions include SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE, Eyes Never Sleep, New York, USA (2025); Liste Art Fair Basel, art fair with Super Dakota, Basel, CH (2023); Synthetic Bodies, Lyles & King, New York, US (2023); The Tale Their Terror Tells, Lyles & King, New York, US (2022); Hell March, eyes never sleep, New York, US (2022); 06, PM/AM, London, UK (2020), Is Anybody Home, LOL, Super Dakota, BE (2020), NADA Miami, art fair with Super Dakota, Miami, US (2019); Frieze NY, art fair witth Lyles & King, US (2019); Front International, Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, US (2018); without Nature, NICOLETTI, London, UK (2018); Dead Eden, Lyles & King, NY, US (2018); Hybrid Objects, L’INCONNUE, Montreal, CA (2016); Painted Perfect, Anonymous Gallery, Mexico DF, MX (2013); Lucie Fontaine at ESTATE, Marianne Boesky, New York, US (2012); After Hours: Bowery Gates Shutter Project, New Museum/Art Production Fund, New York, US (2011); The Exquisite Corpse Drawing Project, curated by David Salle, Gasser Grunert Gallery, New York, US (2010); VOR GOTT IST ALLE KUNST SCHEISSE, curated by David Ostrowski, Dusseldorf, DE (2010).
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, among others.
