Chris Evans' practice spans sculpture, sound, airbrush painting and unwieldy social events. The work is often characterised by the realisation of unsolicited assignments that evolve through conversations with people from a broad range of professions—selected in relation to their symbolic or public roles. These have included managing directors of global corporations, editors of the Morning Star newspaper, and members of the international diplomatic community. Collaboration becomes entangled along largely invisible paths of consultation and negotiation, as social processes are crystallised into art objects. Philanthropists are asked to design door handles for banks (Sculpture International Rotterdam); national police forces are invited to give recruitment presentations at art academies worldwide, exploring the intersection of liberal arts education and law enforcement (Cop Talk); and a luxury jewellery company—the arts patron, Boodles—is asked to design a ring that interprets the press release for the Liverpool Biennial. The resulting works function as indexes of larger structures, through which Evans deliberately confuses the roles of artist and patron, author and muse. In doing so, he want to see how the act of making can offer us something important to tell us about our relations with the public and private world of things and to the infrastructures that shape their circulation and meaning.
His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions worldwide, with solo exhibitions at institutions that include: C.A.N. Centre d’Art Neuchatel (2018); Praxis, Berlin (2015); Project Arts, Dublin (2014); Marres, Maastricht (2010); Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp (2010); the British School in Rome (2008) and Art Pace, San Antonio (2007). Evans participated in the 6th British Art Show in 2005 and the following year in East International and since then has exhibited in several art biennials: Athens Biennial 1, 2007; 4th International Architecture Biennale, Rotterdam, 2009; Taipei Biennial, 2010, and Liverpool Biennial, 2014. In 2016 he was the recipient of a Bryan Robertson Trust Award.
Group exhibitions include 'Lapdog of the Bourgeousie 2026', De Appel, Amsterdam (2026); 'What can I do now with this great useless machine of my love? It has no wholesome work to do', [as Sudden Wealth], (2026); 'Bureau of Unspecified Services', SALT Galata, Istanbul (2018); 'Good luck with your natural, combined, attractive and truthful attempts in two exhibitions', CRAC Alsace (2015); 'A Needle Walks Into a Haystack', Liverpool Biennial (2014); 'Regenerate Art', Kunstverien Munchen (2014); 'The Serving Library', Tate Liverpool (2014); 'Les Mots Bleus', Biennale de Belleville 3, Paris (2014); 'The Narrators', The Walker Art Gallery and The Royal Standard, Liverpool (2013); 'Specific Collisions II', Marianne Boesky Uptown Gallery, New York (2013); 'Taipei Biennial 2 Year Project', Taiwan (2013); 'Go Deep or Go Home', ASC Gallery, London (2013); 'Surplus Authors', Witte de With, Rotterdam (2012); We Love You, Limoncello, London (2012); Glamourie, PSL, Leeds (2012);‘The Indirect exchange of uncertain value’, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh (2011), ‘Taipei Biennial 2010’, Taiwan; ‘An Unpardonable Sin’ Castillo/Corales, Paris (2010), ‘Talk Show’, ICA, London (2009), ‘Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie’, Arnolfini, Bristol (2009); ‘A Fantasy for Alan Kaprow’, CIC, Cairo (2009); and ‘The Impossible Prison’, Nottingham Contemporary (2008), “Destroy Athens”, the 1st Athens Biennial (2007), "Memorial to the Iraq War" at ICA – Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2007), "I really should..." at Lisson Gallery (2005) and “British Art Show 6”, Hayward Gallery, London, touring UK (2005-2006).
Chris Evans is the bassist of Life Without Buildings and now writes, performs and commissions music — currently with Morten Norbye Halvorsen and Graham Kelly under the name Sudden Wealth. He is the editor of two anthologies of writing: Magnetic Promenade (& Other Sculpture Parks) (2006) and Job Interviews (2018).
Chris Evans was a member of Liverpool Biennial's board of trustees (2017—2023), is a tutor at the independent artists' institute De Ateliers, Amsterdam, and a researcher at LUCA School of Arts, Ghent.