Chris Finley

American, b. 1971

Life Suit
1994

Plastic, metal, and glue
32 x 60 x 45 in.
Gift of Barry Sloane
2005.92

Chris Finley’s unusual sculptures and installations can elicit an intense response from viewers, while the artist employs fairly mundane everyday objects to offer commentary on his perception of the world. As art critic Elizabeth Mangiui notes: “The conspicuous informality of Finley’s assemblages makes them appear to be the spills or accidents you’d find in a forgotten corner of a garage, but in fact they are carefully composed constructions whose materials often bear personal meaning for Finley himself.”
Finley was born in Carmel, California. He continues to live in work in Petaluma, California and is a professor of art at San Francisco State University. He received a Pollock/Krasner Foundation Grant in 2010, a significant award for a American artists, and his work is in many museum collections.

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This object has the following keywords:

• blouse
• box
• clothing - Coverings for the torso, limbs, hands, feet, and head for warmth, fashion, or to cover nudity. It generally excludes other items of costume such as jewelry, crowns, and other accessories that are purely decorative or symbolic and have no practical function.
• containers
• green
• installation
• mixed-media
• objects
• off-white
• pink
• plastic
• sculpture
• skirt
• wood

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Uses of the Real I , 1/20/2008 - 4/30/2011
• Looking Backward & Forward , 1/29/2022 - 5/5/2023

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