full statement

Chris Lujan is a Detroit-based figurative painter celebrated for her visceral forms and psychologically insightful color palette. In her work, she emphasizes the importance of color, shape, and line, abstracting the figure repeatedly until she captures the feeling she is searching for. The application of paint to the surface is as significant to her as the content of the image. “I strive to balance figurative imagery with mark-making, ensuring neither overshadows the other. This approach allows the space for personality, oddity, and the viewer's own perception. It enables me to create as if assembling a puzzle, letting the work speak to me as I speak to it. Like poetry, each brush stroke and blank space is essential to the overall story.” Through my paintings, I aim to evoke a sense of vulnerability and introspection, inviting viewers to reflect on their own emotional landscapes. My choice of color and the rhythm of mark-making are guided by these intentions, allowing each piece to serve as both a personal exploration and an open invitation for viewers to engage with their own feelings. By connecting technique to emotion, I hope my work resonates on a deeper level, creating space for dialogue and self-discovery.

As a young child, Lujan would spend hours meticulously drawing the alphabet—not for penmanship, but out of fascination with the unique shapes, flowing lines, and gentle curves of each letter. Living with dyslexia, she found it challenging to transform these symbols into words, which led her to see the world differently, focusing on patterns, shapes, and colors. The tactile experience of drawing—the way graphite moved across paper, the visual rhythm of repeating forms—became central to her understanding and appreciation of art. “Art has always been, and will always be, the lens through which I perceive the world.”

Throughout her life, she has drawn inspiration from the strong and passionate lines of Alice Neel, Francis Bacon, and Egon Schiele; the vibrant brush strokes of Jenny Saville, and Lucian Freud; and the unique color palettes of Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Marlene Dumas. Lujan reflects, “Inspired by Jenny Saville’s dynamic brushwork, I strive to infuse my figures with a similar sense of movement and intensity, allowing the paint itself to carry emotional weight.” While she admires Egon Schiele’s searching lines and Alice Neel’s psychological presence, Lujan often diverges from her influences by pushing her figures further toward abstraction—distilling the body into expressive marks and vibrant color fields that teeter on the edge of recognition. “I’m drawn to the way these artists evoke emotion and challenge the viewer to introspect. My own work seeks to build upon this by inviting the viewer into a space of ambiguity, where the boundaries between form and feeling blur. Each painting becomes a conversation between my influences, my intuition, and the evolving image on the canvas.”

Her work has been featured in notable venues including the General Motors Design Building’s 2024 permanent collection, the Charles T. Fisher Mansion for the Junior League of Detroit’s Hill Harper Showhouse (2018), the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (2014), and the Detroit Youth Center’s 2005 public installation for the “Art on the Move” grant project.