Speed of Life

Gregg Chadwick The Monk's Road 36"x36" oil on panel 2018 I’m very pleased to let you know that my painting  The Monk's Road  has been chosen to be featured in the New This Week Collection on Saatchi Art's homepage.   The Monk's Road  is part of an ongoing series of artworks about seeking peace and justice in a world in need of harmony. In the mountains of Northern Thailand, rising above the city of Chiang Mai, peaks are often caught in an early morning sea of fog. Written as ทะเลหมอก in Thai, this mist often covers the summit of Doi Inthanon, Thailand’s highest peak. On the mountain slope- two Buddhist stupas, often referred to as chedis in Thailand, sit to honor the monarchs of Thailand. Known as Phra Mahathat Naphamethanidon and -Nophamethanidon, the chedis were named to reflect the power of the sky and the grace of the land.  My painting "The Monk's Road" is set in this mist shrouded landscape. Three Buddhist monks in...

Honored to have my painting "Bookseller's Night" in the latest issue of The Santa Ana River Review. A wonderful art and literary magazine out of UC Riverside. Link Here: http://sarreview.ucr.edu/booksellers-night/

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...

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...

Gregg Chadwick Barcarole 14"x14" oil on linen 2012

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

Dear Friends, I am honored to invite you to register for the next  One Hour/One Painting Art Meditation Session  which will be led by the  distinguished art writer Peter Clothier  at 6:30pm on May 24th, 2012 in my studio at the Santa Monica Airport.  Peter has recently hosted One Hour/ One Painting sessions at the Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series exhibit at the Orange County Museum of Art and at the LA Louver Gallery.  When describing Peter Clothier's sessions, I am often asked what to expect. In short, Peter will guide a small group of people through an exercise in 'concentrated looking' over the course of one hour's time. He will do this by taking us, as individuals in a group, on a visual and contemplative tour of my large, six by eight foot, painting  A Balance of Shadows . We will experience color, shape, space and image in a concentrated yet calm and meditative manner using our eyes and minds.  I see this as an 'exercise i...

by Gregg Chadwick “Dear Mr. Sendak,  How much does it cost to get to where the wild things are? If it is not expensive, my sister and I would like to spend the summer there.”  -From a letter sent by an eight year old reader to Maurice Sendak Maurice Sendak   Where the Wild Things Are Pen and ink and watercolor on paper  1963 Maurice Sendak was an artist in love with the world and with things that go bump in the night. Sendak looked deeply at the world around him. His vision included the visible nature of  our existence and the invisible, but no less real, world of dreams. Sendak's beautifully crafted artworks for his books began with simple pencil sketches that were then enlarged and fleshed out with pen and ink which was then layered with glowing watercolor washes.  The finished paintings on paper reflect what Dave Eggers described in a Vanity Fair article on Sendak as the "unhinged and chiaroscuro subconscious of a child." Sendak's...

Gregg Chadwick Neon Dreams 40"x40" oil on linen 2012

by Gregg Chadwick Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) Sudden Shower Over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake (Ohashi Atake no Yudachi) (#58 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo) Sheet: 14 3/16" x 9 1/8" woodblock print 9th month of 1857 Brooklyn Museum Photo Courtesy The Brooklyn Museum Japanese fiction is a great love of mine. My taste ranges widely from the postmodern antics of Murakami, to the quiet intellectualism of Endo, to the luminous spaces of Kawabata, and to the pent up rage of Mishima. In a culture which traditionally values quietly getting along even when catastrophe strikes, fiction allows a space for readers to wail with those who hurt and lash out at those who would oppress. Japanese novels of mystery and horror provide such a space to ponder the darker recesses of humanity. Mystery writer Keigo Higashino, originally from Osaka and now resident in Tokyo, is currently one of the best selling authors in Japan. Reading "The Devotion of Suspect X" provides un...

A nice video from Winona State University documenting my large, commissioned painting from 1999 - Cartographer's Dream.

Gregg Chadwick Setsuko's Room 30"x40" oil on canvas 2011

Gregg Chadwick Rauch Licht (Smoke Light) 30"x22" monotype on paper 2011

Louise Bourgeois photographed in 1990 behind her marble sculpture Eye to Eye (1970) Photo Raimon Ramis © Adagp, Paris 2008 "I have been to Hell and back and let me tell you it was wonderful." - Louise Bourgeois The artist Louise Bourgeois has died at 98 on Monday at the Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. It seemed that she would live forever. Her career has been historic. Holland Cotter has just written in the New York Times that "her psychologically charged abstract sculptures, drawings and prints had a galvanizing effect on younger artists, particularly women." I have been inspired by Louise Bourgeois' work for quite some time, having encountered her sculptures for the first time when I was a High School student taking classes at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC. Her life ends but the mystery embodied in her artwork lives on. A recent bio provides the details: "Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris in 1911 to a family of tapestry restorers...