Speed of Life

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...

Revenant New Paintings by Gregg Chadwick by Gregg Chadwick |

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...

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...

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.

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!

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 ...