Lee With Heavy Hair

Mike Chattem has always been amused with banality and fascinated by the absurd underpinnings of reality. In his paintings, mundane moments are transmuted into illusive scenarios that convey a sense of playful and surreal exploration. Scenes like someone looking at a hallway floor, a picture of a friend in nature, and a midnight picnic are rendered with dense detail and pattern into fragmentary, collage-like tableaus.