Chris Tanner(III)

Chris Tanner, the Star of "Spin Cycle" and "Narrowcast" as well as countless amazing shows at LaMaMa ETC and Theater for the New City is a spectacular artist . The New York-based renaissance man -also a set designer, actor and downtown cabaret singer in drag-that old modernist dictum "less is more" has rarely carried much weight. Rather, his motivating mantra has long been "more is more." Over the years, Tanner's esthetic outlook and art-making efforts have focused on the value of meticulous craftsmanship, the meaning and nature of glamour, and an unabashed celebration of beauty. More recently, the artist has said, he's become interested in "succulence, abundance, bounty and the life force that flows through nature and the human body."

Best known for spectacular, mixed- medium "paintings"-luxurious, canvas-mounted assemblages of such humble materials as big shiny sequins, colored sand, shells, stones and fabric scraps-Tanner is also a capable draftsman who routinely draws from live models, and sinuous lines derived from his drawings often make their way into his compositions in other mediums. Lately, Tanner has taken a break from his brightly colored, thickly encrusted paintings, experimenting instead with more pointedly three-dimensional, wall-mounted and freestanding sculptures.