2022

 

by Gregg Chadwick

Happy Year of the Tiger! Good News and New Art  from Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick Steps of Time 30" x 24" oil on linen 2020 Featured in Seeds of Optimism  "Manifest a happy and bright new year with a joyous artwork  by one of our top artists from around the globe."                    Bethany Fincher - Assistant Curator at Saatchi Art    As 2022 begins, I am honored that Saatchi Art included an artwork  of mine in their Seeds of Optimism collection. In my new  interview with Art Squat Magazine, I discuss my Saffron Road series: "Twenty years ago in Thailand, I woke up at dawn and spent  the morning quietly and carefully observing the saffron robed monks  on their morning pilgrimages. On my return to the U.S. later that week,  I began to paint Buddhist monks, privately at first - as a form of meditation.  Only later did I grasp the dharmic sense of responsibility inherent in this new  body of work. I needed to paint these paintings. And I found that  the audience I had developed over the years felt the need to see them also . They have given me their trust that I will create paintings that  speak of our times but also provide clues to a future path into the unknown." Collection at https://www.saatchiart.com/.../Seeds.../1376557/638724/view

Gregg Chadwick Frida Cano (E Line) 37" x 24" oil on linen 2021 On exhibit in 𝙒𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙚… 𝙋𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙈𝙚𝙩𝙧𝙤 𝙍𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙗𝙮 𝙇𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨. Union Station, Los Angeles, California   For the Metro project "We Are…Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists", I painted a portrait of artist, writer, and curator Frida Cano.  Like a steel river, Metro’s E Line connects arts institutions across Los Angeles County. Running from 7th Street in Downtown L.A. to Santa Monica, the E train begins just down Bunker Hill from LA MOCA and the Broad Museum and passes by numerous art cultural centers from the California African-American Museum, to the art gallery districts in West Adams and Culver City, to the Sawtelle Corridor, to Bergamot Station, to the 18th Street Arts Center, ending a few miles from the Ocean Park neighborhood in Santa Monica that inspired artists from Richard Diebenkorn to John Baldessari.  Frida Cano lives in Echo Park and often travels on the E Line to her art curatorial position in Santa Monica. Frida lives and breathes the concerns of our times. She writes,” As an emerging Mexican artist and curator, focused on the reevaluation of history and culture through Latin American perspectives, it has been my concern to truly communicate the social issues of our times.” Frida rides the train and sees the world reflected in the glass of the E Line as she travels across L.A. Frida believes that art curators, in tandem with artists and critics, can bring circulating and hidden ideas to light. This zeitgeist informed my portrait of Frida Cano, pictured thinking as she waits for the E train.    Frida Cano Meets Frida Cano at  𝙒𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙚… 𝙋𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙈𝙚𝙩𝙧𝙤 𝙍𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙗𝙮 𝙇𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨. Union Station, Los Angeles, California We Are...Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists is on view in the Union Station Passageway Art Gallery and in an expanded online gallery that celebrates diversity and the community of transit riders. We Are... will launch more upcoming programs in 2022 across multiple formats and sites including buses, trains and stations in Los Angeles County. The program will even include a special Metro Art Bus!  This multi-site exhibition and series of events is presented by Metro Art in collaboration with Metro’s Office of Civil Rights, Racial Equity & Inclusion and Communications departments.

Gregg Chadwick Ocean, Otters, Oil 40" x 40 oil on linen 2021 Featured in Plants and Poetry Journal: Wildlife of the Underworld   On walks along California's Central Coast, I often stop and peer into the swirling mix of seaweed and surf looking for the telltale bob of a sea otter as it breaks to the surface. The tap, tap, tap of otters cracking shells across rocks carried on their chests as they float on their backs in the kelp filled water also gives away their location. Sea otters are voracious eaters, clearing coastal seabeds of purple sea urchins that would otherwise decimate the growing kelp forests.   By keeping the purple urchin population down, sea otters remove kelp's major nemesis. Sea urchins feed on the holdfasts that keep kelp anchored to the bottom of the ocean. Sea otters feed on the purple sea urchins that devour kelp forests. When the sea otter population collapsed after centuries of being hunted for their furs, the entire ecosystem of the Monterey Bay shifted.  The bay's giant kelp forests disappeared and along with it most of the sea life that they supported and protected. Matt Simon in Wired's November 4, 2021 article on sea otters explains that, "Keeping the urchin population in check preserves the kelp, which is vital for the ecosystem in two main ways. First, the forest is a habitat for fish, which are the food source for birds and other marine mammals, like sea lions. Second, the seaweed is part of what scientists call a blue carbon ecosystem, meaning a coastal or marine area that sequesters carbon."    To get even closer to sea otters, I love to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium and their sea otter information and exhibition space. The Monterey Bay Aquarium describes sea otters as aquatic environmentalists: "By munching on urchins, they help kelp forests flourish, and by crunching on crabs, they promote eelgrass in estuaries. But this marine mammal is endangered — and needs our help." The sea otter population along the Central California Coast has rebounded after being feared extinct early in the 20th Century. But a family of resilient sea otters were found near Bixby Bridge in 1938. Due to strong conservation efforts, California's sea otter population has slowly grown to the current number of around 3,000. A combination of legal protection — in 1977 sea otters became protected under the Endangered Species Act — and the efforts of nongovernmental organizations have prompted the sea otter resurgence. But the sea otter's future is still at great risk. Oil spreading south from a single tanker spill near San Francisco or off the pristine Central Coast would threaten the entire California sea otter population. With the recent oil spill in Southern California off Huntington Beach in October 2021, I was reminded how vulnerable our coastal ecosystem is to oil spills and climate change. Coast Guard officials determined that the spill came from a leak in a pipeline owned by Houston-based Amplify Energy that shuttles crude from offshore platforms to the shore. In response to this latest environmental emergency, I created my painting Ocean, Otters, Oil.  Gregg Chadwick Ocean, Otters, Oil (detail) (Oil Platforms Ellen and Elly Offshore near Long Beach, California) 40"x40"oil on linen 2021   As I painted Ocean, Otters, Oil and other artworks in my Fragile Earth series, I have been listening to the environmentally and socially conscious Australian band Midnight Oil. In 1990 Midnight Oil created a guerilla performance in front of Exxon headquarters in New York City with a banner reading, "Midnight Oil Makes You Dance, Exxon Oil Makes Us Sick," as they played in protest of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.  Midnight Oil has released a new song about our global climate crisis that illuminates the peril in which we find our fragile earth. This new Midnight Oil song Rising Seas has found its way to the top of my studio playlist and inspires me to keep speaking out, to keep creating, to keep caring about the future of our planet. Please visit Plants and Poetry Journal: Wildlife of the Underworld to see my artwork and more inspiring poems, prose, and artworks on our oceans and fragile ecosystem.

New Gregg Chadwick Interview by Laura Siebold in Art Squat (Occupy Art) Magazine   "The Other Art Fair edition at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica couldn’t have been a better place to give contemporary artist Gregg Chadwick a platform to exhibit his oil on linen paintings, especially as he creates his art in an old airplane hangar, as well. Gregg takes inspiration from important cultural and political figures and turns them into paintings, capturing moments and moods of contemporary America. Gregg’s series are very distinct in character – ranging from strong portraits of human beings, animals in the natural world, over medical portraitures to paintings that are inspired by meditation. A common element of Gregg’s paintings is his use of “internal illumination” to hold the viewer’s attention, his layered “Pentimenti” painting technique, and his tendency to create a glimpse of a path into the unknown future, told by his paintings multifaceted stories. Often, the artist draws ideas from poetry, novels, and music, then incorporating those elements into his paintings. Being renowned for his expressive art, Chadwick has exhibited in various galleries and shows across the U.S. and internationally; his paintings are part of many permanent collections. Gregg Chadwick is based in Los Angeles, California." - Laura Siebold in Art Squat (Occupy Art) Magazine Please visit http://www.art-squat.com/articles3/Gregg_Chadwick/index.php to read the entire interview.

Gregg Chadwick Year of the Tiger (Sumatran Tiger - CJ) 40" x 40 oil on linen 2021   In an auspicious kick off to the new year, Singulart has included  Year of the Tiger (Sumatran Tiger - CJ)  in their new Year of the Tiger collection.  This oil on linen painting is the first in a series of artworks depicting the characters in the Chinese Zodiac using animals in the Los Angeles Zoo as models and inspiration. The model for Year of the Tiger is the Sumatran Tiger named CJ. Sumatran Tigers are severely endangered in the wild and need our help so they do not become extinct. I first became aware of the fragile nature of our planet as an elementary school student. For Christmas one year, I asked my parents for the book “Wildlife in Danger” published by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) They are still an important organization providing information, plans, and hope for our endangered earth. Worried about the environment as a kid, I drew pictures of animals constantly. Now, I am creating paintings that shed light on climate change, the beauty of the natural world, and our place with other species. Year of the Tiger was  first exhibited at The Other Art Fair in Los Angeles at Barker Hangar in September 2021 and continues to uphold the spirit of those born under the tiger's sign as we move into 2022. Gregg Chadwick The Great Sunset (Carmel) 24" x 30 oil on linen 2020 Over the years, I have gravitated to the beach as a place of peace and healing. My parents moved to the Carmel area when I was a student at UCLA so the Central Coast of California will always be a site of family gatherings and homecomings. Going for a run along the beach as the sun goes down fuels me. We are still not traveling much outside of Santa Monica, due to the coronavirus, so I decided to venture out through my paintings. The golden light of late afternoon as it blends with the pink of a Carmel Point sunset appeared through the veil of memory on my canvas. A quiet, poetic moment inspired by my family home and the poetry of Carmel's late, great poet Robinson Jeffers. I wish you peace and prosperity in this new year!    - Gregg Chadwick, January 2022 A visitor viewing work by Gregg Chadwick in the Recovery Justice: Being Well exhibition at 18th Street Arts, Santa Monica, California.  Photo by Geoff Palomino.

Visit Gregg Chadwick's Website

by Gregg Chadwick

Paintings and sculptures at their best possess an uncanny ability to communicate ideas and feelings that words or other media are hard-pressed to convey. It seems that especially in times of struggle or unrest, art helps us connect to the personhood of others. Art creates dialogue. Dialogue promotes reflective discussion. And reflection can lead to change.

Artists often use their creations as a sort of reflecting device that mirrors and focuses the viewer’s attention on social and political unrest. As Marvin Gaye sang so poignantly - “What’s going on.”

Gregg Chadwick

Call and Echo (left), America’s Sons [From Ferguson to Baltimore] (right)

In my solo exhibition at Audis Husar Fine Art, a group of paintings provide their stories. The young man in Call and Echo has been seen by many viewers as an homage to Emmett Till. Not a description of the unspeakable violence enacted on that young man in the 1950’s, but instead as a human being with personhood, with a face of innocence and cause.

Gregg Chadwick 
Call and Echo

 In dialogue with Call and Echo is America’s Sons (From Ferguson to Baltimore). Inspired by the poetry of Langston Hughes, the words and advocacy of Ta-Nehisi Coates, DeRay McKesson, and Black Lives Matter - my painting turns a spotlight on the stories of young black men who face racial profiling, harassment and often death.  

Gregg Chadwick
America’s Sons (From Ferguson to Baltimore)

With millions of others, I marched on January 21, 2017 in the Women’s March. Our crowd in Los Angeles numbered around 750,000. Again, on January 20, 2018 we hit the streets - the crowd was estimated by L.A. Mayor Garcetti at 600,000.

Gregg Chadwick
The Future Is Woke

In the midst of these peaceful gatherings, I took visual and auditory notes as inspiration for a series of paintings exploring this time of change. I took special note of the signs that were carried by the crowd and documented them in my paintings The Future Is Woke and Still I Rise.

Gregg Chadwick

Still I Rise (left), The Future Is Woke (right)

Gregg Chadwick 
Still I Rise

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Gregg Chadwick
The Future Is Woke (left), Scarlet Shadow (right)

In the center of the gallery is my large scale imagined portrait Scarlet Shadow. In a museum or gallery, the eyes of painted portraits follow you as you walk around the room. There is life within them. It’s the artist’s way of drawing you in.

When a Buddhist image is created, only when it is finished are the eyes painted in. The eyes give life to the Buddha or the saint. As artists, we “paint in” the eyes, we paint in the freedom, the spark that injustice threatens to take away. Artists should never forget their own power to do this.

While in Bruges, Belgium, I was intrigued but also taken aback by a series of small portraits of women by the Flemish masters. In the museum these tiny portraits were

Gregg Chadwick
Scarlet Shadow

locked away in an almost inaccessible dark glass case. I decided to create a sort of artistic jailbreak on my return home and set one of the women free on a grand scale. Much like a novelist allows a character to become real in the pages of a book, Scarlet came to life on my canvas.  

On June 26, 2015 Marriage Equality became the law of the land. With hundreds of others we celebrated on the Supreme Court steps. Later that glorious day, I chatted with President Obama’s official photographer Pete Souza in front of the White House which was lit up in rainbow colors in celebration of the LGBTQ community.

Gregg Chadwick 
Arrivals and Departures

While we watched, the Presidential Marine Corps unit arrived. Onboard was President Obama returning from his moving speech at the memorial service for the church folks who were gunned down by a young white supremacist in South Carolina. President Obama sang Amazing Grace that day. Arrivals and departures…

I painted Arrivals and Departures in memory of that day and with the knowledge that the struggle for equality for all continues.

Gregg Chadwick

Platform

Platform is set on an elevated train station in Queens in New York City with a view of Manhattan in the background. An almost impressionistic light fills the scene. In this lyricism, I aim to draw viewers into the painting.

Leonard Cohen wrote in the lyrics to his song Anthem:

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”

The light gets in and draws people deeper into my paintings.

Mulholland Blue is set on the opposite coast in the hills above Los Angeles. Standing on Mulholland and looking down towards the glittering lights below, a blurred trio contemplates the mystery of existence.

Gregg Chadwick
Mulholland Blue

Does the woman in the green dress meet her double and the memory of her lover? Or has time allowed past, present and future to coalesce?

In a more mythic place, a figure stands unclothed in a darkening forest in Indigo Night.

Alone in thought, layers of indigo and true ultramarine create a dream world.  I often buy tubes of genuine lapis lazuli from the London color maker Michael Harding. Lapis lazuli is true ultramarine ground into a crystalline powder and mixed with linseed oil on a stone mill. It is the color blue found in Renaissance skies. Transparent layers of this lapis mark each of my paintings in this exhibit. Sourced in Afghanistan, lapis lazuli reflects the historical tides of trade, conquest, and conflict that ebb and flow across this region and the globe.

Gregg Chadwick
Indigo Night (left), October Path (right)

October Path is part of an ongoing series of artworks about seeking peace and justice in a world in need of harmony. The mountain peaks of Northern Thailand, rising above the city of Chiang Mai, are often caught in an early morning sea of fog. October Path is set in this mist shrouded landscape. Two Buddhist monks in saffron robes appear and then seem to merge with the air. The color of their robes is considered the color of illumination or satori – the highest wisdom.

Gregg Chadwick
Three Secrets

Three Secrets brings us back into our urban world. Summer in the city. Three young women leaving their ballet school near city hall. Secrets shared as they walk. The afternoon light gilds their strides.

Painted images are both timeless and immediate and can cut through the visual white noise that surrounds us. Paintings can speak across oceans and cultures where words are not enough.

-       Gregg Chadwick, March 2019

Notes on Technique:

Ghosts of earlier ideas appear within my artworks and combine with other transparent moments to create a semblance of movement, of time passing. I build a combination of shadow and illumination in each painting to create a sensation of light emanating from the work. I work with oil paint and usually create at least one color in each painting from ground pigments mixed by hand with linseed oil. Linseed oil has the propensity to grow more transparent with age and visible traces of earlier painted marks gradually appear because of this tendency – called pentimenti. I embrace this eventual outcome in my work and incorporate planned and unplanned pentimenti in my process. Unless noted, all of the paintings are created on Belgian linen.

Gregg Chadwick
 Sea of Pearls (Will Rogers)
oil on panel 2018

Gregg Chadwick
Tower of Song (Leonard Cohen)
oil on panel 2018

Gregg Chadwick
We are the Resistance (Carrie Fisher)
oil on panel 2018

How the Light Gets In

Paintings by Gregg Chadwick

 

New solo exhibition of Gregg Chadwick's art 

Audis Husar Fine Art in Beverly Hills. 
Opening Reception - March 30, 2019
5:00 pm Benefit Film Screening - Breaking the Cycle
7:00 pm Art Exhibit and Refreshments 
RSVP   audishusar@icloud.com

 

Audis Husar Fine Art

Address: 8670 Wilshire Blvd Suite 114, Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Hours: Please contact via phone or email below for an appointment
                March 25 - May 11, 2019

Phone: (310) 994-9828

Email: audishusar@yahoo.com

Opening Reception in Conjunction with Benefit Film Screening of Breaking the Cycle

About Arzo Yusuf's Documentary Breaking the Cycle
There are over 500,000 kids in the foster care system in America. Many foster kids are targeted by human traffickers. Los Angeles is the #1 city in the U.S. for the most kids in foster care and #3 for human trafficking. Los Angeles has more than 30,000 kids in foster care. The system is broken and our youth are at high risk of being homeless and trafficked. Breaking the Cycle addresses the issues and creates a call to action. 
Reservations Available at link below:

More on the film and Arzo Yusuf in the Chronicle of Social Change

Sat, Mar 30

5:00 PM

"BREAKING THE CYCLE"