Speed of Life

Gregg Chadwick The Painter of the World (   Seol-min)   12"x9"oil on panel 2021 At the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco a few years ago, I watched the Korean Buddhist Nun artist Seol-min paint a gorgeous artwork of the Water Moon Avalokiteshvara, also known as Guanyin. Her canvas was laid flat on the floor and she painted on top of it as if she was bodysurfing a gentle wave with brushes in hand. The large hall where Seol-min painted was quiet. The gentle sound of her brushes created a kind of music that echoed off the marble walls. My oil on panel painting "The Painter of the World" is my latest artwork inspired by this experience with the artist Seol-min. The Asian Art Museum has created a video of Seol-min at the museum. I am in the background, off camera, watching the events. Video Below. Link at: https://education.asianart.org/resources/korean-buddhist-art/ Featured at Saatchi Art's The Other Art Fair Los Angeles at Barker Hangar from September 23-26, 2021....

by Gregg Chadwick China's Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor's Legacy at  the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco  photo  by Gregg Chadwick  "I, Sovereign, am the First Emperor; my descendants will call themselves the Second Generation, the Third Generation, and will go on forever after."  - The First Emperor, Qin Shihuang (259-210 BCE)      quoted by the historian Sima Qian (145-90 BCE) China's Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor's Legacy  currently on view at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco until May 27, 2013 provides tantalizing glimpses of an ancient culture and its rulers' attempts to influence cultural and political memory. Over two thousand years ago, Qin Shihuang - the first emperor of China, began constructing a massive mausoleum to ensure, what Li He, the Asian Museum's associate curator of Chinese art, describes as the personal and political "continuation of the fami...

As the Beijing Olympics nears its finale, I can't help but think about the conflict between the Olympic ideal and the Chinese state sponsored attempts to make China appear good and powerful at all costs. It seems that at least one of the star Chinese gymnasts has not yet reached the needed Olympic competition age of sixteen and has submitted a state-forged passport with an inaccurate date of birth to the International Olympic Committee. And most of all, the question of Tibet hangs over Beijing like the smog that chokes the athletes lungs. It appears that the Chinese government has blocked the Apple i-tunes site for the past week to keep the Chinese people from hearing and purchasing the benefit album Songs for Tibet. It seems that many of the athletes from around the world had downloaded the album in the Olympic village and were listening to what has become a top rated i-tunes download around the world. The album is a benefit for the Art of Peace Foundation. Gregg Chadwick Throug...

Drama and Desire: Japanese Paintings from the Floating World 1690-1850 opened Friday at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and runs through April 2008. The exhibition of Japanese paintings from the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has traveled from Kobe, Japan to Nagoya to Tokyo to the Kimbell Museum then back to their usual home in Boston and on to Ontario and now San Francisco. The exhibition is stunning. Hokusai's ukiyo-e woodcuts may be quite familiar but the chance to see his paintings on silk was revelatory. Two paintings in particular stood out: Hokusai's Woman Looking at Herself in a Mirror (Kyômen bijin zu) is a work of extreme elegance and beauty. A woman stands before a mirror, a cherry seductively lolls in her mouth, and in her right hand she holds a letter. A poem inscribed on the scroll by the poet Shima Tokki reads: Does that letter from the man she waits for promise a summer's night out? Katsushika Hokusai, Japanese, 1760–1849 Wo...