Speed of Life

Opening Event tonight at LACMA for the Tim Burton exhibition. Jane's Addiction is slated to perform. Much more to follow... Tim Burton Untitled (Edward Scissorhands) 1990, private collection Edward Scissorhands © Twentieth Century Fox, © 2011 Tim Burton More at: Tim Burton at LACMA

Gregg Chadwick The Wound Dresser - Walt Whitman - Washington DC 1865 30” X 24” oil on linen 2011 "The eyes transcend the medium." -R.B. Morris (Songwriter, Performer, Poet, Playwright) I have created an ongoing series of paintings that explores the history of nursing for National Nurses Week and the birthday of Florence Nightingale. Three of these paintings were exhibited at the recent UCLA symposium: The Image of Nursing. The artworks were then auctioned at a gala event (Nurse: 21) to help fund scholarships for UCLA School of Nursing students. The paintings adopt a look as viewed through the lens of time similar to the art of a period film. In my artistic practice, I create dream like images with space for the viewer to imagine their own paths to meaning. At times these openings may be found in the doorway of a subject’s eyes. Walt Whitman's poetry is a continual source of inspiration for me. Whitman's life as a nurse, helping wounded soldiers during th...

Nemesis-Ai Weiwei: The Elusiveness of Being. By Geandy Pavon "The concept of the project is to impose the face of the victim on buildings walls that house government offices … The light on the wall is a symbol of revelation." -Geandy Pavon Provocative work by Cuban-American artist Geandy Pavon as he projects a billboard sized portrait of Ai Weiwei onto the Chinese consulate in New York City. More at: Geandy Pavon Website Video: Imprisoned Artist Ai Weiwei's Face Projected On Chinese Consulate

by Gregg Chadwick Gregg Chadwick Study for Kamakura 14"x11" oil on linen 2011 " The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty." - Kenko, from Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa), circa 1330 I am always honored to support the Venice Family Clinic with my art. My donation this year reflects my interests in Southern California and Japan with Study for Kamakura . Kamakura is both a beach town and a center of Japanese culture. In my painting, grey beach haze seems to mask the distance between east and west. Kamakura is home to the great statue of Buddha, the Daibutsu , pictured on countless postcards and books on Japan. Two years ago, I finally made my pilgimage to Kamakura and stood in awe beneath the great statue. A great wave washed away the building housing the Daibutsu in the 15th century. Since that time the statue has been seated in meditation beneath the sun and the stars. After surviving great tsunamis and political upheavals, the Daibutsu provides pers...

Gregg Chadwick Hanuman's Dream 72"x96" oil on linen 1996 NEC Collection And the dust clears and we are still here. How then shall we live? Photo Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images Make My Bed? But You Say the World’s Ending

by Gregg Chadwick The First Grader , a new film directed by Justin Chadwick and produced by Richard Harding and Sam Feuer, opens today May 13, 2011 in Los Angeles and New York. Since I wrote the following review in March, I have seen the film again and attended a marvelous question and answer session with Justin Chadwick, Naomie Harris, Richard Harding and Sam Feuer. I met Justin at that event and he mentioned that people were asking him if his brother had written a review of the film. Justin and I are not knowingly related but I am sure if you follow the genetic path you will find that there is a connection somewhere in the distant past. In honor of my artistic brothers and sisters and their beautiful film, The First Grader , I am posting my thoughts on the film below. I recently attended a pre-release screening of this poignant and numinous movie set in the Rift Valley in the mountains of Kenya. The First Grader, like Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire, seamlessly combines st...

Gregg Chadwick Cassiel by Computer Light 40"x18" oil on linen 2008

Roman Ruins at Leptis Magna, Libya Photo: ALAMY As the fighting continues to rage in Libya, the gaze of the West seems to have turned to Abbottabad. The dedication of artists like Sam Brookes turns our heads back to this story of pain, heroism and ultimately triumph. More at: The Music of Sam Brookes .

Gregg Chadwick Belle Ville 11"x11" oil on linen 2005

"Performing in Madison, Wisconsin and seeing 100,000 people in the streets demanding justice inspired me to record an album of union fighting songs. I've been a proud union man for 22 years and my mom was a union public high school teacher, so for me this fight is very personal. Unions are a crucial counterweight to the raw corporate greed that torpedoed our economy, threatens our environment and wants to strip away decades of social progress. From Cairo to Madison, workers are pushing back and tyrants are falling. Here's a soundtrack for our fight." -Tom Morello The full length UNION TOWN EP will be released digitally May 17th with all proceeds going towards pro-union struggles. On February 21st of this year, Tom Morello performed at the Capitol Square in Madison, Wisconsin in protest to an anti-union bill put forward by Governor Scott Walker. Morello explains in his editorial about the experience, “Frostbite and Freedom: Tom Morello on the Battle of Madison...

A Berlin Museum Calls for China to Free Ai Weiwei Last week, Salman Rushdie in the New York Times , wrote an important piece on the plight of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Excerpts below: "The great Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern, a former power station, is a notoriously difficult space for an artist to fill with authority. Its immensity can dwarf the imaginations of all but a select tribe of modern artists who understand the mysteries of scale, of how to say something interesting when you also have to say something really big. Louise Bourgeois’s giant spider once stood menacingly in this hall; Anish Kapoor’s “Marsyas,” a huge, hollow trumpet-like shape made of a stretched substance that hinted at flayed skin, triumphed over it majestically." Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei at the Tate Modern in London - October 2010 "Last October the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei covered the floor with his “Sunflower Seeds”: 100 million tiny porcelain objects, each handmade by a master craftsman,...