The Azure Hour

The Azure Hour,

GreggChadwick 

40" x 30" oil on linen 2012

I'm excited to announce that my work has been featured in today's Saatchi newsletter. Here is a link to share with all:
http://eepurl.com/sJ8y9

What a perfect time of the day...."The Azure Hour." Painting by Saatchi Online artist Gregg Chadwick (LA). Learn more about this wonderful piece and view Gregg's portfolio here: http://saatol.us/UHezq1

Happy Holidays !

Study for The City Dreams

Study for The City Dreams, 
GreggChadwick 
12"x12" oil on linen 2012

Will be exhibited at the Sandra Lee Gallery in San Francisco, California during the upcoming Holiday Group Show which runs from December 4th through the 29th.

Opening Reception:

Saturday, Dec 8, 2012 from 4pm to 6pm

at the Sandra Lee Gallery
 251 Post Street, Suite 310
San Francisco, CA 94108
 415.291.8000
art@sandraleegallery.com

Grand Central

Grand Central by GreggChadwick 

36"x48" oil on linen 2012

Santa Monica Art Studios Holds 8th Anniversary Celebration This Weekend @ Santa Monica Airport

Gregg Chadwick

Occupy

40"x30" oil on linen 2012

I am pleased to invite you to the 8th Anniversary Celebration of the Santa Monica Art Studios at the Santa Monica Airport. Come by this weekend - Saturday, October 13th from 6-9PM and Sunday, October 14th from 1-5 PM for a sneak peek at my new work in Studio #15 and the other amazing artists in our 22,000 square foot art laboratory.

Gregg Chadwick

Studio #15

3026 Airport Avenue

Santa Monica, CA 90405

Tomorrow and Thursday in Nor Cal: The Painted Word Book Tour

I am honored to announce the publication of my latest collaboration with the author Phil Cousineau:
 The Painted Word. 

Sixty-three of my artworks are included in this new volume. 

Book Tour Dates - All Are Welcome & All Events are Free. I will bring a group of the artworks included in the book to each event listed below:

In Northern California:

Tomorrow: Phil Cousineau and Gregg Chadwick on The Painted Word at Book Passage 

51 Tamal Vista Blvd | Corte Madera, California

Wednesday, September 12, 2012, 7:00 PM (Art by Gregg Chadwick Courtesy The Sandra Lee Gallery, San Francisco)

Thursday: Phil Cousineau and Gregg Chadwick on The Painted Word 

City Lights Booksellers | 261 Columbus Avenue | San Francisco, California

Thursday, September 13, 2012, 7:00 PM (Art by Gregg Chadwick Courtesy The Sandra Lee Gallery, San Francisco)

In Southern California:

Phil Cousineau and Gregg Chadwick on The Painted Word at Warwick's Books | 7812 Girard Avenue | La Jolla, California

Wednesday, November 7, 2012, 7:30 PM

Phil Cousineau and Gregg Chadwick on The Painted Word | Book Soup | 8818 Sunset Blvd West | Hollywood, California

Thursday, November 8, 2012, 7:00 PM

NEW BOOK:  The Painted Word By Phil Cousineau and Gregg Chadwick

"When Phil Cousineau and Gregg Chadwick join creative forces it is an important event. This historic collaboration shines with fresh insights into both language and art."
— Alexander Eliot, author of 300 Years of American Painting and The Global Myths

Notes on the Artwork In The Painted Word
When I was young, the form of words—the way they looked— intrigued me and I often wondered what it would be like to look at a word and not be able to read or understand it. In essence, I wondered about the indecipherable mystery behind the word. The artworks I have created for The Painted Word take that sense of mystery into the world of paint and image.

Each creation began with that wonderful, slippery stuff that never wants to be tamed or pinned down: paint. Specifically, I use oil paint for its historical resonance and also because of its liquid origins in the oil pressed from flax. From this plant comes both linseed oil, which is mixed with dry powdered pigments to create oil paint, and linen, which traditionally has been used as the surface that oils are painted upon. Whenever I unroll a new bolt of linen in my studio a rich fragrance reminis- cent of a newly cut field fills the room.

I find that freshly stretched paintings waiting for their first touch of color invite the mystery of life and creation. The word stories written by Phil Cousineau opened up a similar sense of wonder. Like the words, each tube of paint also brought its history into the room. Color names are words steeped in myth and meaning. Lapis Lazuli evokes dangerous treks along the Silk Road into Afghanistan that brought this exquisite blue stone into the workshops of Renaissance artists. The pigment was so expensive and so important it was often reserved for coloring the heavens and Mary’s garments. A separate clause in the artist’s contract would dictate how much the client would pay for the Lapis Lazuli in addition to the amount paid for the artist’s services. Other colors weren’t so dear but were still rich in lore. Burnt Sienna is a warm brown earth pigment that was dug up in the fields surrounding Siena, Italy. Cinnabar, a brilliant red originally found in minerals veined with mercury, also made its way along the Silk Road from its source in China. I used all three of these colors in many of the paintings in The Painted Word.

Gregg Chadwick

(From The Painted Word, available in September 2012. 

Published in the United States by Viva Editions, an imprint of Cleis Press, Inc., 2246 Sixth Street, Berkeley, California 94710.)

"If The Painted Word were a club act, I'd sit there drinking in Cousineau's revelations, tales and mythologies until they kicked me out of the joint. Reading this brew of etymology, history, lore, and pop connections, with lambent illustrations by Gregg Chadwick, is just as intoxicating. A Cousineau riff on a (passionately selected) word is like Mark Twain meets Coleridge meets Casey Stengel meets---well, everyone who's fun and informative, whether the riff is on autologophagist (someone who eats his/her words) or jack, which, believe me, the world-traveled Cousineau knows when it comes to language. "

—Arthur Plotnik, author of The Elements of Expression: Putting Thoughts Into Words

La Vita Trasparente (The Transparent Life)

Gregg Chadwick

La Vita Trasparente (The Transparent Life)
48"x36" oil on linen 2012

Inspired by the poem
La Vita Trasparente by Luigi Fontanella:

LA VITA TRASPARENTE
Luigi Fontanella

Apre la città le sue strade,
corrono biciclette senza persone,
alla finestra s'affaccia
e sparisce un volto di donna,
le vetrine offrono sessi
per ogni stagione,
giro di vite:
balla una coppia agile e magra
nella piazza deserta,
la corsa degli uomini,
agita chiome il bosco
in controluce,
passi su foglie
e solchi di fango duro,
viale d'autunno
carrozza regale
pioggia di rugiada
e di carta:
la vita trasparente.

The Transparent Life
by Luigi Fontanella
(translation by W.S. di Piero)

the city opens its streets,
bicycles go by riderless,
a woman's face in a window
appears then vanishes,
shop windows offer fetishes
for every season,
lives turning,
a slender agile couple dances
in the deserted piazza,
the race men run,
the hairy woods shivering
against the grain of light,
footsteps on leaves
a furrow of stiff mud,
avenue of autumn
royal coach
rain of dew
and paper -
the transparent life.

More at:
Luigi Fontanella

Barcarole

Gregg Chadwick
Barcarole
14"x14" oil on linen 2012

Mulholland Drive

Gregg Chadwick
Mulholland Drive
30"x40" oil on linen 2012

The Poet of Milan

Gregg Chadwick
Il Poeta di Milano (The Poet of Milan)
24"x18" oil on linen 2012

The Venetian Night

Gregg Chadwick

La Notte

14"x11" oil on linen 2012

La Notte, my latest painting, was begun shortly after I returned from my latest excursion to Venice, Italy. Venice, poised between sea and land, is a place where light, shade, color, and reflection merge and recombine in the city's watery environment. In this mirrored world, past and present seem to coexist. History’s shadows slide in and out of darkened alleys and slip along narrow canals.


The color and light found in the artworks of the Venetian painters Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Tiepolo, seen up close in the city of their creation, is always revelatory. These artist's artworks glow like light upon water. This effect of reflected, sparkling light bouncing off canals, is called gibigiane in Venetian dialect. The liquid nature of transparent oils glowing from within, as if light lived within the pigment, seems to fix this quixotic glow onto canvas.