CHRISTOPHER M. SHELBORNE

Christopher Matthew Shelborne was born in Anchorage, Alaska. He was raised and schooled in McGrath, Alaska a village on the Kuskokwim River. Growing up in Bush Alaska in a predominately native village, he was immersed in Native American tradition and the subsistence lifestyle that supplements the small cultural hub. Shelborne holds a bachelor degree from Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri. There in the winding, subterranean catacombs of the painting department, Shelborne studied with the late master Lester Goldman and Chicago painter Ronald Slowinski. 

Interested in the cultural changes occurring in the Southwestern United States, Shelborne moved his studio to New Mexico and later to Los Angeles. Drawing on the political turmoil and the immigration debate reshaping the country his work has since taken on beautiful, but odd combinations of youthful happiness and melancholy cityscapes. Government and corporate presence is often represented in the form of discarded items or military equipment. 

Shelborne's colorful, encrypted work is geared and driven by the world’s fast moving social mechanics and political weight of the United States. Figures, props, and symbolism combine in paint to give voice on how American political and social forces continue to shape the United States and civilizations abroad. The work is best described as thick, expansive oil paintings that deliver a powerful humanitarian message while offering a peaceful veneer of beauty and innocence. Shelborne’s paintings are in public and private collections in the United States, Mexico, and Central America.