Christian Vargas
fat dog – good luck

October 1 – November 19, 2022

a fat dog on the porch
a safe place to request
a breath of dense summer heat
a memory lost to time
an extra plate
good luck

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fat dog – good luck presents new ceramic sculptures by Christian Vargas, a sculptor born, raised, and based in Fresno, California. His works often resemble tiered towers adorned with cast embellishments made from objects and ephemera collected from flea markets, swap meets, and estate sales. Made with a red clay body, a material with deep history in California’s Central Valley region, the sculptures are glazed loosely in dusky black and ornamented with color like polychrome on ancient ruins. From a distance their mass looms like the silhouette of an Aztec teocalli or an art deco building on Fresno’s Fulton Mall. Upon closer inspection, familiar idols rear their heads: Batman, Bart Simpson, Bozo the Clown, and lesser gods too: a horse cast from a belt buckle, a plastic alligator, a bastardized Happy Meal toy. Stained glass spills over from the top of the pyramid; a birthday cake gone wrong, a pulsating swamp, a whirling carnival ride.

Vargas’ relationship to objects developed from familial practices of collecting and arranging. Interested in the point where utilitarian and decorative impulses merge, his visual lexicon includes Egyptian step pyramids, Fresno’s public art and architecture, 80’s and 90’s collectible toys, pre-Columbian pottery, skate videos, tramp and folk art, and the aesthetics of the swap meet stall. Mining archives of his personal ancestry, local material culture, and art history for non-hierarchical design and collaging practices, Vargas brings together disparate influences in a language all his own, in a way that can only be done with a material like clay which holds the physical touch of the maker. Raising the aura of mass-produced and utilitarian objects to the level of sacred and ceremonial, Vargas' sculptures are relics of our time, made for the future.