Elusively Odd

How Do We Get There From Here

Bossier City artist Joshua Chambers is a painter, storyteller, philosopher, teacher, theater set designer and former museum curator who was once described as “elusive and happily odd.” That description, he says, “felt correct.”

“Elusive” may seem apt when viewing his paintings. With scant but symbolic imagery, Chambers challenges viewers to think about what he is saying about himself, contemporary times and how they themselves relate to that imagery.

Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Chambers comes to this philosophical and introspective approach to painting through a long parallel career while teaching and creating art. With a master’s degree in fine arts from Louisiana Tech in Ruston, he did a stint as curator of education and public programs at the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe and taught in talented arts programs in Ouachita, Bossier and Caddo parishes. He now serves as an assistant professor of studio art at Centenary College in Shreveport. All the while, he continued to develop his painting vocabulary and voice, which is to tell stories.

As a teacher and artist, Chambers says his objective “is to suggest a story without fully telling it while inviting viewers to bring their own interpretations and emotional responses to the work.” The imagery in his stories, he continues, usually begins with a “real person and a real moment — grounded in personal experience.” Although the thematic starting point is often autobiographical, he says he strives to reinterpret his visual metaphors “through a more imaginative, sometimes storybook-like lens, allowing them to evolve into open-ended narratives … [that] often blend the emotional truth of the original experience with symbolic and surreal elements.”

I Knew Happiness When It Started

For the curious minded, the philosophy behind his paintings becomes a bit clearer when Chambers explains how playwright Edward Albee and absurdist writers such as Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus were “gateways” for him into existentialism, humanism and postmodern thought. “And I can’t leave out Shel Silverstein,” he says. “His poems and illustrations continue to have a huge impact on me. The way he paired simple line work with powerful, often whimsical storytelling continues to influence how I think about visual narrative and tone.”

Equally important, Chambers draws upon his background as a theater set designer. Audiences, he says, must “suspend belief to accept the state as a complete world, even when it’s made up of just a few carefully chosen elements. The gaps are filled in by imagination. I aim to create a similar experience in my paintings. I intentionally keep the imagery minimal and focused, using only the most essential elements. This restraint allows the viewer’s imagination to do some of the work, much like a stage set invites the audience to complete the world in their minds.”

Chambers’ metaphorical imagery often contains animals, especially playful chimpanzees and birds. Chimpanzees fascinate him, he says, because they act as “a kind of storybook version of me.” Humans, he continues, have had a “complicated” relationship with them. “We entertain ourselves with them, exploit them, protect them and sometimes see ourselves in them,” he says. “That layered dynamic makes the chimpanzee an ideal figure through which I can explore themes of identity, vulnerability, and connection.”

We Knew Them More

Birds, especially the sandhill crane, also have symbolic meaning. “The crane,” he says, “represents resilience and adaptability. It’s a species once threatened, now carefully repopulated through human effort, and it serves as a reminder of both our destructive power and our capacity for stewardship. Like chimpanzees, birds have long been imbued with symbolic meaning across cultures, and while I often draw from that broader symbolic language, I also infuse each figure with personal meaning.”

As to viewers, Chambers’ goal is to “create a sense of shared understanding like swapping stories with friends, but without needing to be in the same room or even the same moment in time.”

It is, he says, much “about assigning meaning to the seemingly meaningless — inviting viewers to question, laugh, reflect or even contradict themselves. Sometimes, we need to laugh at why we cry — or cry about why we laugh.”

For more information, visit joshuachambers.com.

Exhibits

Cajun | Fragile Matter. Artists weave dialogue between ecology and craft to explore the region’s natural beauty, through Jan. 31. Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette. hilliardmuseum.org

Central | Enduring Concepts. Artists approach themes of people, place, emotion, and spirituality; permanent show. Alexandria Museum of Art. themuseum.org

NOLA | Afropolitan: Contemporary African Arts at NOMA. NOMA’s collection of pioneering African Artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, through Dec. 28. New Orleans Museum of Art. noma.org

North | Invocations: Selections from the Permanent Collection. Explores overlap between sacred imagery and forces of destruction or change, Nov. 20 through Jan. 30. Masur Museum of Art, Monroe. masurmuseum.org

River Parishes | The Sculpture of Scott, Payton, Hayden and Bechet. Exploration of Black heritage imbued with symbolism, expression and inspiration, through Jan. 25. LSU Museum of Art, Baton Rouge. lsumoa.org