Blue Velvet (David Lynch)

Blue Velvet (David Lynch)

30"x24" oil on linen 2025

by Gregg Chadwick

My oil on linen painting "Blue Velvet (David Lynch" is an homage to a visionary director and his artistic vision.

Lynch thought of Los Angeles as a place of hidden mysteries and breathtaking light. Lynch said: “What I really like about {Los Angeles} if you drive around – especially at night – you can get a little gust of wind of the great days of the silver screen. All there in, like, living memory... it was an incredible place to be at the beginning of cinema.” In my artwork, David Lynch stands beneath the Aero Theater marquee in Santa Monica, California which is emblazoned with the words - "David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Sold Out." Just days after his death, the American Cinematheque held a special screening in his honor. I walked up to the Aero to honor the memory of David Lynch. As I arrived the sun was setting across the Pacific and an elegiac glow lit up the theater on Montana Avenue. In this moment my painting was born.

Thanks for a great opening at Saatchi Art!

Trento Night (Una Notte a Trento) 24"x18" oil on linen 2016 Currently on view at Saatchi Art until June 1, 2017 #art #saatchiart #italy #trento #glamour

A post shared by Gregg Chadwick (@greggchadwick) on Feb 20, 2017 at 9:12pm PST

Thank you to everyone at Saatchi Art for a marvelous opening on Thursday night and for everyone who braved the oncoming storm to get out and visit the show.

Gregg Chadwick's painting Trento Night
at the Mark-Making Opening at Saatchi Art in Santa Monica, February 16, 2017 

A Memory Museum

by Gregg Chadwick

Holland  Cotter has a wonderful new piece in the New York Times entitled A Memory Museum. 

Cotter writes," I’m also a curator of my memory, which carries traces of art encounters from over the years. A few of those encounters — with certain objects, books, buildings — have altered the atmosphere, changed how I see and joined a permanent collection that I regularly revisit."

He then challenges us to describe experiences with art that has changed our lives and to post them in the comment section in his article. I find this to be an enlightening question:
Which works of art have changed the way you look at the world? 

I answered Mr. Cotter with the following:

The place of memory in the arts is so revealing. One of my first experiences with an artwork happened in Amsterdam when I was a six year old and the experience changed me forever. My father had finished his tour in Vietnam as a USMC JAG and we reunited as a family in Europe. During that trip we visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. There I found myself slack jawed in front of Rembrandt’s iconic group portrait "The Sampling Officials of the Amsterdam Drapers Guild."  I recognized it as the same image on the Dutch Masters’ cigar box, my father’s go-to brand. The connection was phenomenal; I was hooked and I knew that someday I would become an artist.