Posts

Gregg Chadwick's News and Events for October 2014

Image
1. Gregg Chadwick 's painting  "To Catch A Thief" has been selected by Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason, the husband-and-wife team behind the lifestyle brand AphroChic , to hang in the special  Helms Bakery Pop-up Home  October 10 – 12, 2014 in Culver City.  Details at:  http://aphrochic.com/2014/08/29/save-the-date-the-aphrochic-pop-up-house-at-helms-bakery/ Gregg Chadwick "To Catch A Thief'  10"x10" oil on panel 2014 2. Gregg Chadwick will have artwork in the Art Unified booth at  Worldwide Art Los Angeles  at the Los Angeles Convention Center from October16-19, 2014. More at:  https://worldwideartla.com   Gregg Chadwick "Oracle of Milan"  40"x30" oil on linen 2014  3.  Make sure to save the date for the most exciting art event of the year in Santa Monica! The 10th Anniversary Open Studios at Santa Monica Art Studios Please join us for the 10th Anniversary Open Studi...

Hands Up! Don't Shoot!

Image
Powerful # Ferguson Themed Cover for Sept 1 New Yorker @ NewYorker Issue

A Memory Museum

Image
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 Euro...

Please Join Gregg Chadwick for an Artist Talk on Revenant at the Sandra Lee Gallery on July 26, 2014

Image
Please join me this Saturday, July 26, 2014 at the Sandra Lee Gallery in San Francisco as I gather with a small group to discuss my new series "Revenant" - each painting holds a mysterious story where past and present meet. The event runs from 3:30 to 6:00 pm. Also, if you haven't seen it yet, please check out the review by Jeffrey Carlson in Fine Art Connoisseur: "Gregg Chadwick's Revenant" ( link here) before my talk. More details below:

Revenant: New Paintings by Gregg Chadwick

Revenant    New Paintings by Gregg Chadwick   In folk mythology, a revenant is a being or force that returns from another level of existence to haunt the living. The paintings in my new series, Revenant, carry the ghosts of their former selves. Each work goes through an open-ended series of painting sessions. Surfaces are scraped down, over painted, and layered with transparent pigments.  Opaque swaths of color are brushed into the wet surface, leaving remnants of past figures and locations, while memories and future visions surge to the surface and overwrite the image.        Current science is discovering that our earliest memories of childhood may be pushed out or overwritten like computer code by the growth of neurons during our early years, which could help explain the mysterious memory lapses, what Freud called “infantile amnesia”, in our childhood memories. Often, for me, bits of these ghostly, fragmented memories po...

Sneak Peek - Revenant: New Paintings by Gregg Chadwick at Sandra Lee Gallery - July 2014

Image
Revenant New Paintings by Gregg Chadwick by Gregg Chadwick |

Film Review - Generosity of Eye: Art Transformed into Education

Image
by Gregg Chadwick   Generosity of Eye: Art Transformed into Education from brad hall  (Full Film) Generosity of Eye: Art Transformed into Education is a must watch documentary by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall that documents William Louis-Dreyfus, Julia's father,  as he explains why he decided to sell his bountiful art collection to benefit the Harlem Children's Zone - an educational program in New York, created by Geoffrey Canada to break the cycle of generational poverty for the thousands of children and their families in the Harlem community.  Julia is often on screen with her father and their scenes together are rich with familial affection. As Julia interviews her father about the art that William has collected over the years and the artists who have created it, she is often overcome with emotion as she discovers the depth of her father's passion for art and for justice. Geoffrey Canada, William Louis-Dreyfus, and Julia Louis...

Rachel Carson's Powerful Legacy

Image
Today's Google doodle honors the groundbreaking environmentalist Rachel Carson, whose book  Silent Spring sounded one of the first alarms about the detrimental effect of pesticides on the eco-system. The natural world was my first love as a kid and reading Carson's work was instrumental in spurring me on to look deeply at and respect the complexities of our endangered environment. Carson's interest in conservation began with her early work as a marine biologist, which led to her award winning book, The Sea Around Us . Subsequently, nature writing provided a powerful vehicle for Carson to bring mainstream attention to the chemicals being dumped daily into our streams and rivers. Her work inspired global bans of the pesticide DDT  and helped foster the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States. I encourage you to honor Rachel Carson's legacy by spending some time today on the Audubon Society's website , the US National Park Servic...

Santa Barbara Elegy

Image
Gregg Chadwick Buddha of the Adriatic 24"x18" oil on linen 2014 My heart breaks for the families who have lost their daughters and sons during this weekend's senseless massacre in Santa Barbara. There is so much to discuss, to argue over, to ponder. But tonight, I will continue to mourn and ask that attention be focused on the six University of California, Santa Barbara students who were stolen from us.

"Dogtown" Featured In Sunday's 35th Anniversary of the Venice Art Walk and Auctions

Image
Gregg Chadwick Dogtown 17"x17" oil on panel 2014  My painting  Dogtown  will be featured in the Silent Art Auction at the  35th Anniversary of the Venice Art Walk and Auctions  which will take place on Sunday, May 18, 2014 at Google Los Angeles in the Frank Gehry designed Binoculars Building. The painting is available for pre-bidding on the auction site Paddle 8 with a select group of donated artworks.  http://paddle8.com/auctions/veniceartwalk   100% of the proceeds from the sale of my painting go to help fund the Venice Family Clinic’s comprehensive health care program for the low-income and uninsured.  Direct Link at:  https://paddle8.com/work/gregg-chadwick/31720-dogtown More at: Sunday, May 18th, Celebrate 35 Years of the Venice Art Walk &amp ; Auctions!

President Obama Speaks From the Heart About the Holocaust

Image
by Gregg Chadwick “Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill.” -Elie Wiesel   Last night in Los Angeles, President Obama gave a beautiful and powerful speech after accepting the Shoah Foundation ’s Ambassador of Humanity Award from Steven Spielberg during a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza . I want to thank the President, Steven Spielberg and all those involved with the Shoah Foundation for recognizing the importance of remembering. The Shoah Foundation gathers and preserves the stories of those who experienced the Holocaust and other atrocities across the globe. Over the past two decades, the Shoah Foundation has recorded tens of thousands of interviews. Researchers and documentarians have traveled to dozens of countries, interviewing survivors of the  Holocaust, and documenting historical evidence of the Armenian Genocide, and other atrocities. The first person accounts that have been gathered are an invaluable resource for future ...

Mulholland Blue in the 50th Anniversary Pasadena Showcase House of Design

Image
Gregg Chadwick Mulholland Blue 24"x30" oil on linen 2014  Currently, my painting Mulholland Blue is hanging in the 50th Anniversary Pasadena Showcase House of Design in a wonderful room designed by Ederra Design Studio's Cynthia Lambakis and Samantha Williams.   Standing on Mulholland above Los Angeles, a blurred trio contemplates the mystery of existence. 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? The Pasadena Showcase runs from April 13– May 11, 2014 Saatchi Art  ‏ @ SaatchiArt     21h Great seeing this original work by one of our artists, Gregg Chadwick, at the Pasadena @ ShowcaseHouse ! pic.twitter.com/po9NOb3p8Q PasadenaShowcase  ‏ @ ShowcaseHouse     1m @ greggchadwick @ SaatchiArt It's a beauty! More at: Eleanor Schapa On Ederra Design Thanks to MaryLinda Moss for making all this possible!

Oracle of Milan

Image
by Gregg Chadwick  Oracle of Milan 40"x30" oil on linen 2014   Oracle of Milan is the first in an upcoming series of time lapse videos that document the stages and alterations inherit in my painting process. The first impression is key in the formation of an artwork and the opening frames of the video show that something dynamic is present in this new painting. I allow the painting to speak to me with visual clues that lead to new paths. Oracle of Milan was begun in June 2013. Over the past year, I have added and subtracted figures, colors, and elements to arrive at the last frames of the video which show the painting today. Is it finished? Is anything ever finished? Only time will tell.   The video is backed by The National's haunting song England, which has been on a National heavy playlist that has played throughout my painting sessions for Oracle of Milan .  

Easter Light

Image
by Gregg Chadwick Gregg Chadwick Joshua Tree 24"x24" oil on linen 2014 My recent paintings are taking me to times and places that have deep resonance. This newest body of work is marked by time and memory and  explores our present reality in the context of the sometimes hauntingly real shadows that come and go in our daily existence.  At times  spiritual echoes find their way into my art. Sometimes this sense of something bigger or deeper than ourselves is found in the images and locations created within the paintings. At other times this numinous quality is carried by the light within the work. Recently in the studio, I have been thinking about the works of Caspar David Friedrich in  the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Many of Friedrich's paintings depict what I see as an Easter light - a light of promise and redemption.  Caspar David Friedrich Village Landscape In Morning Light 21 5/8 "x28" oil on canvas 1822 Nationalgalerie...

Salish Sea

Image
Salish Sea   Gregg Chadwick 30”x24” oil on linen 2014

The Hush of Stars: Pianist Giuseppina Torre at Arena 1 Gallery in Santa Monica

Gregg Chadwick Sea and Shadow (Mare e Ombra) 30"x20" oil on linen 2014 Courtesy Sandra Lee Gallery, San Francisco Last night Italian pianist Giuseppina Torre gazed attentively at  my painting   Sea and Shadow (Mare e Ombra) and said to me,"La luce a Venezia è magica ." I agreed, the light in Venice is magic. And there is light in Giuseppina Torre's music as well. Earlier that evening in the Arena 1 Gallery at the Santa Monica Art Studios she gave us a taste of her haunting piano compositions at the opening of an  Italian cultural event entitled All Roads Lead to LA, presented in conjunction with the Istituto Italiano  di   Cultura  in Los Angeles. The celebration continues tonight with  poetry, music, fashion and the visual arts. The evening will begin with a poetry reading at 5 pm to be followed by an hour-long performance by Giuseppina Torre. A presentation of contemporary Italian fashion will round out the evening. ...

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

I was struck by this poignant video posted today on the New York Times site and thought how perfectly the Okinawan duo  Isamu Shimoji and Yukito Ara's song captures a longing for a distant home. Sung to the tune of "Danny Boy" their song reinterprets and reframes    Frederic Weatherly's classic and makes it both more personal and more global.  Isamu Shimoji and Yukito Ara's lyrics are below: Beloved child of mine, From beyond the skies is heard the voice of the flute calling to you. Summer has passed, the flowers of the season have fallen. You are preparing for the journey to distant lands. Through the summer when the grasses and flowers bloom and peak, Through the winter when the north winds bluster and blow, here on this island I’m always waiting for you. Beloved child of mine, o beloved child of mine! I’m watching and waiting for you to return, gentle and brave. As the seasons turn and you finally come home to the island of your b...