Speed of Life

  Changes/ David Bowie 41" x 25.5" pastel on paper 2017 by Gregg Chadwick 75th Anniversary of his birth - David Bowie was born on this day in 1947. His decades of groundbreaking music and his shape shifting persona, inspired so many of us little aliens in suburbia to fight against conformity and become our true selves. My artwork looks back on Bowie when he released his haunting song "Where Are We Now?" , which is as much a painting in soft greys as it is a song. A quiet rhythm of drums and synth warp and weft with minor key piano chords and Bowie's plaintive, elegiac voice. Set in a Berlin of memory and dream, Bowie's voice and lyrics question the themes of human bondage, release, freedom, doubt, ageing, and death. Bowie lived in West Berlin between 1976 and 1979 in the Schöneberg district in a house with Iggy Pop while Brian Eno and Tony Visconti were helping record Bowie's Berlin trilogy of albums Low, Heroes, and Lodger in the now legendary Hansa St...

Happy Christmas!

After Trump's EU "foe" comment, one senior European diplomat said to me this morning, he has to separate America from the President, citing the David Bowie song "This is not America" https://t.co/GXldfcpDXt — Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) July 16, 2018

by Gregg Chadwick Bowie Intergalactic Tribute Art Exhibit at the Neutra Museum (Curated by Dulce Stein) Gregg Chadwick Changes: David Bowie 41”x25.5” pastel on paper 2017 My pastel on paper artwork   Changes: David Bowie  will be on exhibit in a David Bowie tribute international multidisciplinary group show at The Neutra Museum in Silverlake. My artwork looks back on Bowie  when he released his haunting song   Where Are We Now?  which is as much a painting in soft greys as it is a song. A quiet rhythm of drums and synth warp and weft with minor key piano chords and Bowie's plaintive, elegiac voice. Set in a Berlin of memory and dream, Bowie's voice and lyrics question the themes of human bondage, release, freedom, doubt, ageing, and death. Bowie lived in West Berlin between 1976 and 1979 in the Schöneberg district in a house with Iggy Pop while Brian Eno and Tony Visconti were helping record Bowie's Berlin trilogy of albums Low, Heroes, and Lodger...

by Gregg Chadwick Tonight, a stunning cover of David Bowie's Haunting song Space Oddity was released from space  by Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station.  The imagery is stunning, reminiscent of the film Moon directed by David Bowie's son Duncan Jones. Sometimes life really does imitate art, even while orbiting earth in a tin capsule in space. UPDATE: Since I posted this last night, Chris Hadfield's video has gone viral with over a million views and counting!   David Bowie's Facebook editors loves the clip stating," It’s possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created." Their Facebook posts continues : you may recognise the name of one of those involved in its creation. We’re talking about Chris's fellow Canadian, the lovely Emm Gryner, who was a part of the Bowie live band in 1999/2000. Here’s what she said on her blog ( http://smarturl.it/EmmBlog ) regarding her involvement: “The task was in front o...

Early this morning David Bowie celebrated his 66th Birthday with the release of his first single in a decade.  This song  Where Are We Now?,  taken from Bowie's forthcoming album  The Next Day,  is accompanied by an artful video directed by the contemporary artist Tony Oursler . Set in a black and white Berlin of memory and dream, Oursler's video combines with Bowie's voice and lyrics to  question the themes of human bondage, release, freedom,  doubt, ageing, and death.   The video opens with a shot of a crystal skull on a table. Reminiscent of Gerhard Richter's evocative paintings of human skulls, this  visual entrance to Bowie's musical memento  mori ,    reminds us that in Berlin we  wrestle with the dead as we walk through a haunted and enchanted city. After the fall of the wall,  Berlin has come to embody the future while at the same time carrying the scars of the past.  Bowie sings : ...

by Gregg Chadwick Must watch video from 1964 of a young David Bowie standing up for the rights of all. The recent news stories about Mitt Romney's extreme bullying and cruelty during his high school years comes to mind.: "A high school classmate of presidential candidate Mitt Romney told ABC News today that he considers a particular prank the two pulled at Michigan’s Cranbrook School to be “assault and battery” and that he witnessed Romney hold the scissors to cut the hair of a student who was being physically pinned to the ground by several others. 'It’s a haunting memory.  I think it was for everybody that spoke up about it …  because when you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it.  And that was what we all walked away with,' said Phillip Maxwell, who is now an attorney and still considers Romney an old friend." Romney's actions show an almost pathologica...