Gold Coast Art Collectors embrace Californian Painter Chris Trueman

The Gold Coast is a mecca for new high end residential development, and Chris Trueman’s artwork is the perfect compliment to a coastal environment and contemporary architecture. Tove Langridge of TWFINEART sits down with Chris Trueman to discuss his latest body of work.

Q: Your work has always been quite maximalist, with many patterns, colours and forms fusing into one composition. Your recent work has introduced new pillars of colour into the mix. Can you describe how your work has evolved over the past few years? Tove Langridge

A: I like to move forward in my work while sometimes circling back to connect older ideas. Early on, just after graduated school, I painted with thick, heavy passages that carried weight and presence, pushing out from the canvas into the room. At that time, I was focused on how painting could assert itself in the physical world, standing out against the digital environment. Later, I became interested in the opposite—paintings that shared space with you but felt immaterial.

I began by blending Op Art with expressionist gesture, creating works suspended between optical illusion and raw emotion. Over time, gesture overtook the optical, and I eventually let those references go. My interest shifted toward dematerialization, which led me to working on Yupo, where I could wipe away wet paint to leave “negative marks” or “ghost strokes”—gestures stripped of their bodies.

This evolved into an internal dialogue: the stroke as my presence, my hand, and the act of “buffing” as a more anonymous, collective gesture. Thinking about graffiti—its cycles of appearing, being erased, and returning—I saw a parallel. In my own work, the stroke represents me, while the buff or gradient symbolises erasure, ownership, and the tension between personal and collective authorship. Chris Trueman

Q: I know Technology has been a driving force conceptually for you. It seems to be changing our world faster than ever. What are some of the things driving your latest work? Tove Langridge

A: I’m still very much invested in the relationship between our physical and virtual lives—especially how we collect and present moments to others. Not just authentic experiences, but also the ones we curate or fabricate to shape how we’re perceived. Chris Trueman

I love your use of colour, more is more!! Your paintings are alive with energy and colour plays a part in that. Talk to me about the role of colour in your work? Tove Langridge

The gradient colors were initially inspired by the James Turrell Skyspace at Pomona College, next to where I went to grad school at Claremont. Even after graduating, I’d return there often. I used to visit with my children and watch the light show. No two were ever the same—the interplay between sky, fading light, and LEDs changed with the time of year and weather. That experience deeply influenced my approach to using gradient color in my work. Each pillar or portal of color I paint now represents a specific moment in time and space—a kind of visual timestamp.

Though there are still traces of graffiti-like spray and gestural marks, my recent work is more dominated by these pillars of light and color. They feel like collected moments—experiences compressed into shifting bands of color and light, stacked alongside one another. Chris Trueman