& A rural upbringing and a satirical storytelling style shine through Chris Walter's M.F.A. exhibition entitled "On Yonder Mountain," featured in the large gallery of the Welch School of Art and Design galleries the week of March 12.

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& Beneath the overtones of the simple country life are references to art history, including transcendentalism, abstract expressionism, and relational aesthetics.

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& But there is one constant behind every painting: Walter's father, who passed away last September. Walter's father is embodied by the character "Captain," whose likeness was taken from a Methodist Anti-Prohibition flyer, which Walter says is a fitting representation because his father was Methodist and liked to drink.

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& "It's all about relating to him," says Walter.

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& Walter says that the concept behind his exhibit goes back to his southern roots in Barnesville, Georgia.

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& "One day I was sitting around, watching my dad and his beer drinking buddies," says Walter. "They would get into debates every once in a while over lawn mower tires or trucks, and I thought, what would happen if they were contemplating fine art?"

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& Walter began to realize there were similarities between the characters in his paintings and the personalities of his dad's friends. He had found the heads of the characters by searching through the National Archives, and ironically painted their sophisticated looking portraits onto everyman bodies wearing overalls.

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& The characters' names, Captain, June Bug, Catfish, and T-Bone are all actually the nicknames of his dad and his dad's friends. "Captain" was Walter's father's nickname, and his character is present in every painting.

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& The quotes accompanying every painting also relate to Walter's father.

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& "The quotes are all from the standpoint of my dad, who was always the leader of the group," says Walter. The quotes are meant to add more narrative context to the paintings.

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& "At the heart of things, I'm more of a storyteller than a painter," Walter says.

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& "When I first came into the program, all I wanted to do was paint because I hadn't painted before," says Walter, who received his B.F.A. in Computer Art from Savannah College of Art and Design. Walter says that he wanted to know that he could still create art if he did not have a computer.

& "I couldn't get away from putting a narrative into my work," he says. The characters allowed him to tell his story.

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& "I had just painted them, and I got to thinking, what are they debating?" says Walter. "What are they thinking about? Postmodernism? No, probably not. But what if they were?"

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& Walter says most of the paintings have some truth behind them, coming from memories from his childhood.

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& "I tapped a great reservoir of absurdity with my family," says Walter.       

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& Walter's paintings also contain references to fine art as a way for him to relate to that kind of art, he says. Walter wants his art to tell the story to everyone.

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& "I think a lot of art doesn't bring your ordinary person into it anymore, like you have to have a B.F.A. to even understand what's going on," says Walter.

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& "A lot of this also is me wrestling with contemporary art at the same time," says Walter. "When you're thinking about something that takes so much mental unpacking to understand, like minimal artwork, at some point you inevitably veer off into thinking about something like this, like lightning bugs or beer."

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& Ultimately, Walter says that the exhibit is all about relating to his father. 

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& "In some ways it's like a tribute to him," he says.