TODAY: Gregg Chadwick: A Retrospective Look at the 11th Annual Santa Monica Airport Artwalk

by Gregg Chadwick

* Today - a special look at my paintings and monotypes at the Santa Monica Art Studios on March 18, 2017 from 12-5 pm as part of the 11th Annual Santa Monica Airport Artwalk.  

Featuring A Balance of Shadows from my 2004 solo exhibition in San Francisco and an overview of my artwork from 1999-2017, my studio will be a time capsule for one day. 

Many of the artworks on view have been loaned from private collections and are rarely on public view. In addition, a choice selection of paintings and monotypes will be available for purchase. 

Gregg Chadwick
The City Drifts (San Francisco) 18"x14" oil on linen 1999
from San Francisco solo exhibition - A History of Light 1999

Many of my paintings are inspired by poetry, history, and literature. When I lived in San Francisco and often on return visits, Lawrence Ferlinghetti's bookstore City Lights beckoned. A few years ago with my great friend Phil Cousineau on a book tour for our joint effort The Painted Word, we were able to stand together in a packed upper room at City Lights and express our deep admiration for Ferlinghetti's inspiration. My painting The City Drifts (San Francisco) seems to carry the feelings we all felt in the bookstore that night. Ferlinghetti's poem The Changing Light (see below) embodies that wistful moment.


The Changing Light

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The changing light

at San Francisco

is none of your East Coast light

none of your

pearly light of Paris

The light of San Francisco

is a sea light

an island light

And the light of fog

blanketing the hills

drifting in at night

through the Golden Gate

to lie on the city at dawn

And then the halcyon late mornings

after the fog burns off

and the sun paints white houses

with the sea light of Greece

with sharp clean shadows

making the town look like

it had just been painted

But the wind comes up at four o'clock

sweeping the hills

And then the veil of light of early evening

And then another scrim

when the new night fog

floats in

And in that vale of light

the city drifts

anchorless upon the ocean

"The Changing Light" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from How to Paint Sunlight. © New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2001.

Copies of my brother Kent Chadwick’s wonderfully detailed book on my art will also be available for purchase. 

A Balance of Shadows: Gregg Chadwick's Paintings 

Hardcover – February 6, 2016

Available Online at Amazon

E-book Version 

Available Online Here

Also, I am happy to announce that I have designed a line of clothing and accessories based around my paintings for VIDA fashion.  

Apparel and Accessories Available Online at VIDA

Click Here for VIDA

Hope to see you there! 

SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 2017

12-5 PM

Studio #15

Santa Monica Art Studios

3026 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90405

Free parking outside the hangar.

More on Gregg Chadwick at www.greggchadwick.com

New York City Man - Lou Reed

by Gregg Chadwick

"Lou Reed gave us the street and the landscape - and we peopled it."
 - David Bowie in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"

Well hey, man, that's just a lie
It's a lie she tells her friends
'Cause the real song, the real song
Where she won't even admit to herself
The beatin' in her heart
It's a song lots of people know
It's a painful song
A little sad truth
But life's full of sad songs
Penny for a wish
But wishin' won't make you a soldier.
With a pretty kiss for a pretty face
Can't have it's way

Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay
 - From the beginning of the "Slipaway" section of Lou Reed's song Street Hassle.
    Uncredited spoken vocals by Bruce Springsteen.

Annie Leibovitz
Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson 
Coney Island, New York, 1995
Silver Print

When I found out about Lou Reed's death yesterday morning from Rolling Stone's twitter feed I turned to my Lou Reed playlist and put Reed's cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson's haunting blues number - See That My Grave is Kept Clean along with Antony and the Johnsons' song with Lou Reed - Fistful of Love, and Reed's elegiac urban hymn Berlin, on repeat. 

For many of us who came of age and under the influence of the New York City of the 1970's and 1980's, Lou Reed was New York. While at NYU working on my grad degree in art, Reed's music provided an aural map for my explorations across the city. Reed's staccato talk/singing proved to be a gruff yet tender guided tour through my artistic and lovelorn ventures. Often while on the A train, Marty Fogel's Junior Walker fueled sax riff on Reed's Shooting Star would blare in my walkman's headphones. And Walk on the Wild Side always seemed to accompany me across Washington Square. 

Gregg Chadwick
Ghosts of New Amsterdam
24"x36" oil on linen 2013

Reed's urban suite New York kept me close to the city I loved even as I moved west to California. On a trip back to Manhattan a few years later, a friend who had opened a restaurant in the Village told me that she thought that she had been given a sign that she would make it, because Lou Reed was becoming a regular at her joint. 

Not long after, Reed and his song Why Can't I be Good rumbled across the screen in Wim Wenders' cinematic sequel to Wings of Desire - Far Away So Close. Lou Reed's future wife, performance artist, composer and musician Laurie Anderson, also provided powerful music for the film. On a recent artistic excursion to Berlin, memories of these two films and Reed's album Berlin brought to light elements of the city that I had missed in the past. 




 


Much like an author will write about an event or a place to learn what they feel, I will create a series of artworks to understand what I have seen. I pushed my interaction with Berlin into a recent ongoing series of monotypes fueled partly by the visions of Lou Reed, Wim Wenders, Bertolt Brecht, and David Bowie, 

Gregg Chadwick
Brecht's Song
30"x22" monotype on paper 2011

As Gavin Edwards wrote in Rolling Stone,"While many musicians have made Berlin albums, Lou Reed's Berlin (1973) is the wrist-slashing standard against which they're all judged. When the record concluded with the epic ballad Sad Song, it felt like the whole world was shutting down." Berlin forces us to wrestle with the dead as we walk through its haunted and enchanted streets. After the fall of the wall, Berlin has come to embody the future while at the same time carrying the scars of the past. In the city of Berlin, the political and the personal merge, as evidenced in Lou Reed's Berlin album and David Bowie's recent song Where Are We Now?. In Berlin we are left with existential questions and are reminded that bodies age and die, marriages end, friendships dissolve and memories fade. 

Gregg Chadwick
Rauch Licht (Smoke Light)
30"x22" monotype on paper 2011

During the last years of his life, Lou Reed continued to work with and inspire younger musicians and artists. One of the most fruitful of these mentorship/collaborations was his work with Antony, of Antony and the Johnsons. John Hodgman in the New York Times recounts how the cover image of Antony's EP, I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy "caught the attention of the producer Hal Willner, who bought the EP and played it for Lou Reed, with whom he was working at the time:

'I said, 'Who is that?' Reed recalled. 'So we set out to find him, and he was a few blocks away as it turns out.' ''

Lou Reed invited Antony to tour with him throughout 2003, and every night Antony would sing Candy Says, Reed's haunting tribute to Candy Darling. Caught in the video below, Lou Reed, one of the most influential musicians of the rock era, looks across towards Antony with an expression of pride and wonder. Lou seems mesmerized by what he described as Antony's double tracking and unusual harmonies. Reed had said that he could listen to Antony sing all day. In this video we witness a legend passing on his wisdom and inspiration to another.



Antony and Lou Reed Perform Candy Says



More Videos Below:



Lou Reed & David Bowie Discuss Reed's Album Transformer
 in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"

In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1989, Lou Reed explained that he and Bruce Springsteen were both recording albums at the Record Plant in New York City when an engineer suggested inviting Bruce over to record the "Slipaway" vocals on Reed's song Street Hassle. The last line was Reed's, written with Springsteen's Born to Run in mind:

Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay


More at:
Lou Reed: The Rolling Stone Interview
Antony Finds His Voice

  
Lou Reed greets Chuck Close in front of Close's 2012 tapestry Lou 

    published by Magnolia Editions; photo by Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg

August 2013

An Elegy for Lou Reed

by Gregg Chadwick

I wrote this when I heard of Lou Reed's death in 2013. Three years on the thoughts still stand. Reposted as an elegy to an inspirational figure for so many. 

"Lou Reed gave us the street and the landscape - and we peopled it."
 - David Bowie in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"

Well hey, man, that's just a lie
It's a lie she tells her friends
'Cause the real song, the real song
Where she won't even admit to herself
The beatin' in her heart
It's a song lots of people know
It's a painful song
A little sad truth
But life's full of sad songs
Penny for a wish
But wishin' won't make you a soldier.
With a pretty kiss for a pretty face
Can't have it's way

Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay
 - From the beginning of the "Slipaway" section of Lou Reed's song Street Hassle.
    Uncredited spoken vocals by Bruce Springsteen.

Annie Leibovitz
Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson 
Coney Island, New York, 1995
Silver Print

When I found out about Lou Reed's death yesterday morning from Rolling Stone's twitter feed I turned to my Lou Reed playlist and put Reed's cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson's haunting blues number - See That My Grave is Kept Clean along with Antony and the Johnsons' song with Lou Reed - Fistful of Love, and Reed's elegiac urban hymn Berlin, on repeat. 

For many of us who came of age and under the influence of the New York City of the 1970's and 1980's, Lou Reed was New York. While at NYU working on my grad degree in art, Reed's music provided an aural map for my explorations across the city. Reed's staccato talk/singing proved to be a gruff yet tender guided tour through my artistic and lovelorn ventures. Often while on the A train, Marty Fogel's Junior Walker fueled sax riff on Reed's Shooting Star would blare in my walkman's headphones. And Walk on the Wild Side always seemed to accompany me across Washington Square. 

Gregg Chadwick
Ghosts of New Amsterdam
24"x36" oil on linen 2013

Reed's urban suite New York kept me close to the city I loved even as I moved west to California. On a trip back to Manhattan a few years later, a friend who had opened a restaurant in the Village told me that she thought that she had been given a sign that she would make it, because Lou Reed was becoming a regular at her joint. 

Not long after, Reed and his song Why Can't I be Good rumbled across the screen in Wim Wenders' cinematic sequel to Wings of Desire - Far Away So Close. Lou Reed's future wife, performance artist, composer and musician Laurie Anderson, also provided powerful music for the film. On a recent artistic excursion to Berlin, memories of these two films and Reed's album Berlin brought to light elements of the city that I had missed in the past. 



 


Much like an author will write about an event or a place to learn what they feel, I will create a series of artworks to understand what I have seen. I pushed my interaction with Berlin into a recent ongoing series of monotypes fueled partly by the visions of Lou Reed, Wim Wenders, Bertolt Brecht, and David Bowie, 

Gregg Chadwick
Brecht's Song
30"x22" monotype on paper 2011

As Gavin Edwards wrote in Rolling Stone,"While many musicians have made Berlin albums, Lou Reed's Berlin (1973) is the wrist-slashing standard against which they're all judged. When the record concluded with the epic ballad Sad Song, it felt like the whole world was shutting down." Berlin forces us to wrestle with the dead as we walk through its haunted and enchanted streets. After the fall of the wall, Berlin has come to embody the future while at the same time carrying the scars of the past. In the city of Berlin, the political and the personal merge, as evidenced in Lou Reed's Berlin album and David Bowie's recent song Where Are We Now?. In Berlin we are left with existential questions and are reminded that bodies age and die, marriages end, friendships dissolve and memories fade. 

Gregg Chadwick
Rauch Licht (Smoke Light)
30"x22" monotype on paper 2011

During the last years of his life, Lou Reed continued to work with and inspire younger musicians and artists. One of the most fruitful of these mentorship/collaborations was his work with Antony, of Antony and the Johnsons. John Hodgman in the New York Times recounts how the cover image of Antony's EP, I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy "caught the attention of the producer Hal Willner, who bought the EP and played it for Lou Reed, with whom he was working at the time:

'I said, 'Who is that?' Reed recalled. 'So we set out to find him, and he was a few blocks away as it turns out.' ''

Lou Reed invited Antony to tour with him throughout 2003, and every night Antony would sing Candy Says, Reed's haunting tribute to Candy Darling. Caught in the video below, Lou Reed, one of the most influential musicians of the rock era, looks across towards Antony with an expression of pride and wonder. Lou seems mesmerized by what he described as Antony's double tracking and unusual harmonies. Reed had said that he could listen to Antony sing all day. In this video we witness a legend passing on his wisdom and inspiration to another.



Antony and Lou Reed Perform Candy Says



More Videos Below:


Lou Reed & David Bowie Discuss Reed's Album Transformer
 in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"

In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1989, Lou Reed explained that he and Bruce Springsteen were both recording albums at the Record Plant in New York City when an engineer suggested inviting Bruce over to record the "Slipaway" vocals on Reed's song Street Hassle. The last line was Reed's, written with Springsteen's Born to Run in mind:

Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay


More at:
Lou Reed: The Rolling Stone Interview
Antony Finds His Voice

  
Lou Reed greets Chuck Close in front of Close's 2012 tapestry Lou 

    published by Magnolia Editions; photo by Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg

August 2013

Monotypes at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art

Opening June 17 at the
SJICA: Monotype Marathon XI

Exhibition: June 17 - July 9, 2005
Closing Reception and Auction:
July 9, 5:30 -8
An exhibition of over 125 prints produced in a marathon weekend of Bay Area print workshops.



Gregg Chadwick
"Whispers of Siam"
33"x20" monotype 2005

Notes on the Monotype Process:

Spontaneity characterizes the monotype. A monotype is made by brushing printer's ink or oil paint onto a smooth surface such as glass or a metal plate. The image is then transferred to paper before it dries, using a printing press or other means of pressure.

Because most of the image is transferred in the printing process, only one strong impression can be taken, hence the term monotype (one print). Additional impressions of the residual image are sometimes printed (ghosts). They are significantly fainter than the first pull, yet at times these lighter open images are more successful as works of art.

The personal nature of the monotype suited experimental artists from William Blake to Edgar Degas to Milton Avery.

The English artist William Blake used the monotype process to fashion works of great depth and mystery. Blake's monotypes were created with egg tempera painted onto board, which rendered a textural surface when printed onto paper. Blake would then go back into the works with ink and color to develop the imagery.


William Blake
Pity (color monotype) - 1795


The National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, exhibition from 1997: "Singular Impressions: The Monotype in America" produced an informative video on The Monotype Process.

Invitation to My Opening February 18, 2010 at the LOOK Gallery in Los Angeles

Gregg Chadwick
The Crossing
72"x36" oil, monotype and collage on Japanese Torinoko paper 2010

The morning of my last day on a trip to Thailand, was particularly luminous. I got up especially early and wandered through the alleys of Chiang Mai, following some monks on their serene morning pilgrimage. The light was almost incandescent and the blur of movement seemed to create paintings for me. I just needed to pay attention. To really see. I spent the time on the short flight to Bangkok watching a kind of film playing in my mind of saffron robes scintillating in the morning mist. Later, as I waited for my connecting flight to San Francisco, I caught sight of a different clip on a television monitor as the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center. It was September 11, 2001. I felt the horror of the crowd as we watched in disbelief. I longed for home and my son. Weeks later when finally back in my studio, the juxtaposition of the monks’ serenity in Thailand that day and the traumatic explosions on the other side of the globe, stayed with me. The saffron robed monks in my work are direct echoes of that experience and that day. For me, these monks are spiritual pilgrims that lead us away from the destruction and waste of violence, racism, and hatred. I began painting them, giving space to their calm. The resulting paintings led to a series, and some recent large works-on-paper on this theme are featured in the LOOK Gallery's upcoming exhibition 100 for 1000.
(February 18 to March 31, 2010)

More Images at: Gregg Chadwick at LOOK Gallery
More info at: LOOK Gallery

100 for 1000 opens at the LOOK Gallery in Los Angeles on Thursday, February 18th, 2010. The exhibit runs from February 18th until March 31st. A main gallery wall provides a contemplative space for my recent large works on paper and I will have a large number of 30"x22" monotypes on display as well.

Artists include:
Ann Arden, Sally Peterson, Gregg Chadwick, Eric Poppleton, Cathy Charles, Jeff Robinson, Ghislaine Fenmore, Ronald Santos, Jerri Levi, Bruna Stude, Mike Lohr, Artie Twitchell, Ramon Lopez, Kent Twitchell, Stephanie Mercado, Mike Vegas, Chris Naylor, Adam Wolpert and Walt Peregoy


LOOK Gallery
1933 S. Broadway, Suite 111
Los Angeles, CA 90007
RSVP at (213)748-1113
OPENING RECEPTION FEBRUARY 18 6-9PM

Map It: Directions to the LOOK Gallery

Fragility of Life: I Mourn the Loss of Artist Sylvia Moss

Gregg Chadwick
A Gion Rain
22"x30" monotype on paper 2011


I came home from a memorial service for a great artist and a great friend, Sylvia Moss, on Sunday night. In times of loss and uncertainty, I tend to turn to the arts - books, music, film, theater and museums - for solace. But when an artist is severely ill or dies I find that I have to create. I have been in my studio for the past few weeks creating monotypes. A monotype is a singular impression made from an image which has been drawn or painted on to a printing plate.

My monotype process is technically straightforward but pushes my artistic subconscious in both image and mark. When I painted "A Gion Rain" onto a copper plate, thoughts of Sylvia fell like rain across my mind. Sylvia Moss died in Zurich, Switzerland on May 9, 2011. Sylvia had long suffered from the challenges of multiple sclerosis.

Sylvia Moss grew up in Piedmont, California and then moved east to a beckoning New York City to pursue her love of theater, fashion, and art. Over the years, Sylvia studied at The California College of Arts and Crafts, The Art Student’s League of New York, Columbia University, and The California Art Institute.

Sylvia eventually returned to California and was Professor of Costume Design at the University of California Los Angeles in the Theater Department where she taught from 1973 until 1994.

Sylvia authored numerous magazine articles as well as a groundbreaking book about alternative materials used in costume design, Costumes & Chemistry, published by Costumes and Fashion Press.

I had the fortune to meet Sylvia Moss when the Santa Monica Art Studios opened in an old hangar at the Santa Monica Airport in 2004. She was a continual inspiration as she determinedly fought the ravages of multiple sclerosis to create her visual art.

Sylvia's experimentation with alternative techniques in costume design fueled her explorations in the visual arts. Her paintings are as much archaeological digs as two dimensional creations. Layers of grit, gloss, glitter and color marked her artistic path as Sylvia's paintings seemed to grow of their own accord in her laboratory/altelier.

Sylvia Moss
Meditation 8
22"x30" oil and mixed media on paper

As my fellow artists in the Santa Monica Art Studios will attest I approach brush cleaning as a form of meditation. Each day, I carefully clean the detritus of each brush's passing in a bath of cool water. Just before her final trip to Switzerland, Sylvia wheeled up to me in her motorized wheelchair as I bathed my brushes. She began to speak as if she wanted to tell me the meaning of life but then stopped and just smiled her remarkable, unforgettable grin. And with that smile, Sylvia said "Goodbye" to me. I will hold that smile in my heart each day as I create.

More at:
Sylvia Moss

faces of the fallen

Chester Arnold, the visionary Bay Area painter who exhibits at the Catherine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, has inspired his students at the College of Marin to create a moving exhibition of memorial portraits of American troops killed in action in Iraq. According to the
San Francisco Chronicle
Chester Arnold encouraged his students to take on the project after the United States military death toll in Iraq reached one thousand killed in action, "Perhaps ‘Faces’ can change the political debate,” said Chester Arnold. “Instead of ‘red states vs. blue states,’ I hope that we can find common ground as we did after September 11th.”

In the College of Marin’s “To Never Forget: Faces of the Fallen” exhibit art students and faculty have painted portraits of American troops killed in Iraq – more than 1200.

From the

College of Marin's website:
“Faces” has tapped into a river of emotion in towns and communities across America, many of which have brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, neighbors and friends in Iraq. More than 100 news outlets have profiled the exhibit, including ABC-TV national news and The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and New York Newsday. Now, every day the college receives heart-felt responses from family, friends and others around the country needing a chance to remember and reflect on our losses. Some request portraits of their fallen relatives. Others ask that the exhibit tour the country, or be posted online. Visitors have come from as far away as Tennessee to see the faces of their loved ones.

January 18 through February 22, 2005
Monday - Friday
 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, Sunday
10:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Art Gallery, Fine Arts Building
College of Marin
835 College Avenue
Kentfield, CA 94904

For more information about this exhibit, call 415-485-9494.
I had the pleasure to create monotypes for the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art's Monotype Marathon alongside Chester Arnold last June and now applaud his courage in tackling this war in his classes and his art.
Also see:

Arlington

Veteran's Day

Update: Now at Syracuse University, New York

You Are Invited: Gregg Chadwick- A Retrospective Look - Sat, March 18, 2017

by Gregg Chadwick

I am excited to invite you to a special look at my paintings and monotypes at the Santa Monica Art Studios on March 18, 2017 from 12-5 pm as part of the 11th Annual Santa Monica Airport Artwalk.  

Featuring A Balance of Shadows from my 2004 solo exhibition in San Francisco and an overview of my artwork from 1999-2017, my studio will be a time capsule for one day. 

Many of the artworks on view have been loaned from private collections and are rarely on public view. In addition, a choice selection of paintings and monotypes will be available for purchase. 

Copies of my brother Kent Chadwick’s wonderfully detailed book on my art will also be available for purchase. 

A Balance of Shadows: Gregg Chadwick's Paintings 

Hardcover – February 6, 2016

Available Online at Amazon

E-book Version 

Available Online Here

Also, I am happy to announce that I have designed a line of clothing and accessories based around my paintings for VIDA fashion.  

Apparel and Accessories Available Online at VIDA

Click Here for VIDA

Hope to see you there! 

SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 2017

12-5 PM

Studio #15

Santa Monica Art Studios

3026 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90405

Free parking outside the hangar.

More on Gregg Chadwick at www.greggchadwick.com