Saturday, January 08, 2022

75 - David Bowie

 


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 Studios. Years later, Bowie looks back in "Where Are We Now?" and echoes his words about Low, "Berlin has the strange ability to make you write only the important things. Anything else you don't mention."

The political and the personal merge in my pastel painting of Bowie. We are left with existential questions and are reminded that bodies age, marriages end, friendships dissolve and memories fade. But Bowie's quietly defiant voice does not give in to any dying of the light.
Pictured: Changes/ David Bowie 41" x 25.5" pastel on paper 2017

Thursday, January 06, 2022

Our democracy held. We the people endured. We the people prevailed.


"One year ago today in this sacred place, democracy was attacked -- simply attacked. The will of the people was under assault, the Constitution -- our Constitution -- faced the gravest of threats. Outnumbered in the face of a brutal attack, the Capitol police, the DC Metropolitan Police Department, the National Guard and other brave law enforcement officials saved the rule of law. Our democracy held. We the people endured. We the people prevailed."- President Biden

 

 







 

Wednesday, January 05, 2022

First Dream, First Sale

 




In Japan the first dreams of the New Year, hatsu-yume 初夢, traditionally provide markers for the dreamer's upcoming year.

In that spirit, perhaps the first artwork sold in a new year provides inspiration for the months to come. My painting Monk Station is the first sale of 2022. 

 I was honored that Saatchi Art included an artwork of mine in their new Seeds of Optimism collection.

"Manifest a happy and bright new year with a joyous artwork by one of our top artists from around the globe." Curated by Bethany Fincher - Assistant Curator at Saatchi Art 

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."

My painting Monk Station continues this theme and brings a saffron robed pilgrim into a 21st century urban moment. Inspired by a subway station in Montréal, this painting looks at the place of the spirit in our fast paced lives.

More on Monk Station at https://greggchadwick.blogspot.com/2021/09/monk-station.html

Collection at https://www.saatchiart.com/.../Seeds.../1376557/638724/view

#HappyNewYear #SeedsofOptimism #SaatchiArt #HatsuYume #contemporaryart #contemporaryartist #saffron #artcollector #buddha #buddhism

Happy Birthday Hayao Miyazaki


Each year I am pleased to wish Happy Birthday to the amazing Hayao Miyazaki! My first birthday post to Miyazaki from 2011 (reposted below with updates) says it all:


Taking Flight: Thoughts on the Art of Hayao Miyazaki on His 81st Birthday

by Gregg Chadwick

Celluloid Dreams
Celluloid Dreams at the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan

I woke up from a dream this morning that seemed to have been pulled from a Hayao Miyazaki film. In my dream a tender sapling reached towards the light as it sprouted from my wrist. Above, russet clouds moved in a cerulean sky. I look to my dreams as openings rather than fortunes. Yet, since I recently returned from Tokyo, I should remember that in Japan the first dreams of the New Year, hatsu-yume 初夢, traditionally provide markers for the dreamer's upcoming year.


Hayao Miyazaki
Sketch for Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi)
pencil and watercolor on paper 2001
(Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan)



The vision and mystery of Hayao Miyazaki's work will surely provide inspiration for me throughout 2022. In December 2010, I was fortunate to visit the Ghibli Museum which was created to feature the art and films of Hayao Miyazaki and also the breadth of animation done by Studio Ghibli since its founding in 1985 by filmmakers Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.

Flight plays an important role in many of Miyazaki's films and it is fitting that both the film company, Studio Ghibli, and the Ghibli Museum were named after an Italian airplane first produced before World War II: the Caproni Ca.309 Ghibli. The word ghibli in Italian refers to the hot dry winds that blow across the Sahara desert.


Caproni Ca.309 "Ghibli" In North Africa during WWII

Hayao Miyazaki was born on January 5, 1941 just months before Pearl Harbor and the brutal battles in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. As a small child growing up in greater Tokyo, Miyazaki drew scenes of aircraft and aviation most likely inspired by his father's family business which built airplane parts for Japanese Zero fighter planes and also in the later years of the war, by his remembrances of the waves of Allied bombers which firebombed much of Tokyo into smoldering ruins.


Still from Grave of the Fireflies ((Hotaru no Haka)) 1988
Created by Studio Ghibli. Directed by Isao Takahata.


Much of Miyazaki's mature work reflects his distaste for heedless violence and warmongering. Miyazaki also deeply cares about the environment and the place of natural beauty in a heavily industrialized Japan. Thirdly, many of Miyazaki's films feature a strong, brave, and resourceful main female character. I have been traveling to Japan since I was a kid in the 1970's and I am pleased to see that Miyazaki's vision for life in Japan seems to be bearing fruit. On his 81st birthday, I would like to give thanks to Hayao Miyazaki for his talent, vision, and deep concern for humanity. Bravo!




Hayao Miyazaki at 22
(Courtesy NTV)



Hayao Miyazaki
Sketch for Porco Rosso (Kurenai no buta)
pencil and watercolor on paper 1992
(Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan)



Hayao Miyazaki
Sketch for My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro)
pencil and watercolor on paper 1988
(Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan)



Monday, January 03, 2022

One good thing about music

Friday, December 31, 2021

As 2021 Shifts to 2022

 by Gregg Chadwick



Gregg Chadwick
Wings of Desire
30"x24"oil on linen 2019
Theresa Brown Collection, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania


As 2021 shifts to 2022, I think of years passing like film titles shifting on theater marquees. With that thought, on the day we lost Betty White at 99, I am posting my painting "Wings of Desire". In the spirit of writers Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie, a bit of magical realism often finds its way into my paintings. In memory of Bruno Ganz and in homage to one of my favorite films by Wim Wenders, my oil on linen painting "Wings of Desire" depicts one of my favorite angels hovering by the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Deep thanks @theresabrownrn2021 for loving the film and my painting so much that you had to purchase it!


Monday, December 27, 2021

Painting Is a Team Sport: Wayne Thiebaud

by Gregg Chadwick


"At the heart of Wayne Thiebaud's greatness was his love of art's history and his ability to translate art's standards into his own language for our present.." - Tyler Green

"My favorite Wayne Thiebaud painting is Cup of Coffee. Look at this coloring, what a miracle. What he called being able to 'see the edges of the edges'” - Max Lakin

I was fortunate to meet Wayne Thiebaud a few times when I lived in San Francisco. He was always engaging and always present. The first time I met Thiebaud he was walking out of  the Washington Square Bar and Grill in North Beach on a Fall afternoon in 1991. The Washbag, as the restaurant was affectionately known thanks to San Francisco columnist Herb Caen, was the ultimate place to schmooze with Bay Area politicians and power brokers in the 1980s and 1990s. 
Thiebaud was by himself and didn't seem to be in a hurry after his lunch, so I ventured up to Wayne Thiebaud and thanked him for his artwork. Wayne looked at me and smiled then said, "You must be an artist, a painter, to have said that. You know, that means the world to me, because when a fellow artist recognizes my work, it means that I have done something worthwhile. Thank you for recognizing me." Then he strode off leaving me with a giant smile on my face and a new found badge of courage as an artist. 



Artist and Professor Emeritus Wayne Thiebaud at the under-construction Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art in 2016. He died Dec. 25 at the age of 101. 
(Gregory Urquiaga/UC Davis)


I love how Thiebaud painted San Francisco and the Sacramento Delta. My brother went to college at UC Davis and I would sometimes hang out there, trying to soak up the spirit of Thiebaud and Robert Arneson who taught there. “Wayne Thiebaud believed teaching and learning were life's most important pursuits. He loved to read, discuss, and look together with his students,” said Rachel Teagle, founding director of the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis. “‘Painting is a team sport,’” Thiebaud liked to say. “And for his many, many lifelong students, learning with Wayne was a great honor.” 



Wayne Thiebaud
Sunset Streets
48" x 35 3/4" oil on canvas 1985
Collection SFMOMA
Purchase with the aid of funds from public subscription, William L. Gerstle Fund, Fund of the '80s, Clinton Walker Fund, and Thomas W. Weisel
© Wayne Thiebaud / Licensed by VAGA, New York


Wayne Thiebaud was a great teacher in the classroom and within his artworks themselves. His paintings compel us to recognize the enticing color and subject matter and simultaneously comprehend how they were created. See the form? Good. Now look at the edges. And then the edges of the edges. Thiebaud's painted forms are ringed with glowing auras of color that define space and atmosphere while at the same time keeping us aware of the flat surface they are painted on. Sebastian Smee in the Washington Post writes about this: 
"Thiebaud rims the objects he paints — often pies, cupcakes, ice cream cones or candy machines — with multiple lines of vivid, contrasting color. He does the same with their shadows.

These lines mediate between the objects themselves and their surroundings until the whole ensemble starts to quiver, like a strummed chord."
As a young artist, Thiebaud learned much from Sunday Morning Comics and animation.  Thiebaud expressed that all great artists used the principles of cartooning or caricature as a means of creating individuality and a distinct style. French artist Pierre Bonnard's vibrant work could be described as a caricature of color. And Italian artist Giorgio Morandi's quiet still lifes are also tension filled images. Thiebaud describes the objects in Morandi's painting as if they gripped by a vise. (See video below) In notes for the exhibition Wayne Thiebaud at Museo Morandi - the Morandi Museum in Bologna, Italy finds great affinity between Thiebaud and Morandi:
"an interest for everyday objects, simplified so as to become purely formal elements, the tendency to align them in strictly ordered progressions, the apparent repetition of representations, the study of variants, the aesthetic isolation of objects or groups thereof, the search of strong visual impact through a deep attention to light, form and brushstroke quality. The juxtaposition of their work reveals a shared tendency to subjectively interpret and reconstruct visual reality in conformity to their inner vision." 


Wayne Thiebaud
Girl With Pink Hat 
36" x 29 1/2" oil on canvas 1973
Collection SFMOMA
Gift of Jeannette Powell
© Wayne Thiebaud / Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York
Photo by Gregg Chadwick 

California museums, especially in the Bay Area, are rich with Thiebaud's artworks and I have spent days studying his paintings. I find that when an artist's work speaks to me it makes me want to rush back to my studio and paint. When I look at Thiebaud's paintings, I am filled with a kind of artistic epiphany that inspires me and urges me forward. Sebastian Smee describes this well:
 "The color intensification is not affectless and artificial...Your perceptions don’t feel traduced. They’re heightened, as happens when you’re walking through the streets of San Francisco on a summer evening and golden, slanted light ignites everything it hits, casting dramatic, diagonal shadows, and you can’t believe how preposterously gorgeous it all is."


Gregg Chadwick
Gravity's Empire
72"x36" oil on linen 2014
Carlo Siliotto Collection, Los Angeles and Rome, Italy


My painting Gravity's Empire is a San Francisco cityscape that is an homage to Wayne Thiebaud. Indeed, when I am walking the evening streets of San Francisco and a golden, slanted light ignites everything it hits, I often think of Thiebaud. And I can’t believe how preposterously gorgeous life is.



Robert Arneson
California Artist
68 1/4 in. x 27 1/2 in. x 20 1/4 in. stoneware with glazes 1983
Collection SFMOMA
Gift of the Modern Art Council
© Estate of Robert Arneson / Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York
Photo by Gregg Chadwick 




Saturday, December 25, 2021

Carpe Librum (Maastricht)

 


Gregg Chadwick

Carpe Librum (Maastricht)

48"x36"oil on linen 2021

It is so wonderful when a collector shares their reactions and photos of new artworks in their home. Today @danialexlune was surprised by her amazing husband Dave with my painting "Carpe Librum (Maastricht)"


The painting is featured in @art_squat magazine's new interview with me in their 3rd Issue released today - December 25, 2021.  Link at 
http://www.art-squat.com/articles3/Gregg_Chadwick/index.php

In the interview I explain that "in the past few years, a magnificent bookstore in Maastricht, The Netherlands (@boekhandel_dominicanen) has inspired a group of my oil paintings and works on paper. I exhibited my latest painting in this series, "Carpe Librum (Maastricht)", at The Other Art Fair at Barker Hangar in September 2021. I find that writers in particular are intrigued by this homage to the world of books and learning."





#art #HappyHolidays #merrychristmas #Books #maastricht #theotherartfair #artsquat #theotherartfairla #writers #readers #contemporaryart

Friday, December 24, 2021

Patti Smith: O Holy Night


Dall'Auditorium della Conciliazione di Roma il Concerto di Natale a scopo benefico giunto alla 21.ma edizione. Quest'anno dedicato al progetto "Una goccia per la vita - Fondazione Don Bosco nel Mondo".


Gregg Chadwick
40"x30"oil on linen 2019
Private Collection, Central City, Colorado


My oil on linen painting "Litanies à la Vierge Noire (Litany to the Black Virgin)" was commissioned by the Central City Opera as an image for their production of Francis Poulenc's choral work Litanies à la Vierge Noire. Poulenc describes the inspiration behind his sacred piece: "A few days earlier I'd just heard of the tragic death of my colleague ... As I meditated on the fragility of our human frame, I was drawn once more to the life of the spirit. Rocamadour had the effect of restoring me to the faith of my childhood. This sanctuary, undoubtedly the oldest in France ... had everything to captivate me ... The same evening of this visit to Rocamadour, I began my Litanies à la Vierge noire for female voices and organ. In that work I tried to get across the atmosphere of 'peasant devotion' that had struck me so forcibly in that lofty chapel."

The original painting was exhibited and sold at the Opera in Central City, Colorado in 2019. It is now available for prints on Saatchi Art here https://www.saatchiart.com/print/Painting-Litanies-a-la-Vierge-Noire-Litany-to-the-Black-Virgin/25560/8872744/view

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Ms Fitz Basket Brings Holiday Joy


DC Third grade teacher 'Ms Fitz' has Steph Curry range! 

Award-winning WBB player Kathleen Fitzpatrick aka Ms Fitz made basket from across the court later awarding her third graders hot chocolate. 

 



 

Monday, December 20, 2021

How the Grinch Stole the Post Office | Robert Reich


Thanks to DeJoy, your presents from Santa Are stuck in a warehouse in downtown Atlanta So call your senators and demand that they act The post office must be saved and DeJoy must be sacked Watch More: Your Guide to Dealing with Uncle Bob ►► https://youtu.be/ByhKM8NBK2E




The War & Treaty - Merry Christmas Baby




Hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday season!

Sunday, December 19, 2021

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Portrait of Frida Cano (E Line)

by Gregg Chadwick 



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. 

"We Are...Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists" on view in the Union Station Passageway Art Gallery and in an expanded online gallery celebrates diversity and the community of transit riders. We Are... launches more upcoming programs in 2022 across multiple formats and sites ranging from including buses, trains and stations in Los Angeles County. The program will include even a special Metro Art Bus! Plus, the exhibit will be accompanied by all-ages community engagement programs, including tours, talks, and more. 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. #Art #Trains #Metro #LosAngeles #GreggChadwick 

 See more at https://art.metro.net/artworks/exhibitions/weare/

Official We Are... Call to Action – IG/FB/Twitter: We Are... a community of riders. Join in Metro’s portrait exhibition! Tag a selfie #SomosWeAre and share your journey.

WE ARE… PORTRAITS OF METRO RIDERS BY LOCAL ARTISTS

PASSAGEWAY ART GALLERY EXHIBIT AT UNION STATION NOW OPEN

Metro riders are invited to contribute selfies and personal stories of transit using the hashtag #SomosWeAre

Celebrating the diversity of Los Angeles County and the community of transit riders, We Are…Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists is an exhibition featuring portraits presented throughout the Metro system and online. Each rider portrait has a story that is personal and universal, intimate and immediate— a single story among the many stories of 840,000 daily riders on Metro, and each told by an artist with ties to neighborhoods served by Metro.

The We Are… exhibition displays 35 new artworks in the Union Station Passageway Art Gallery along with additional artworks in an expanded online gallery.

To view all images in the online We Are gallery, click here.

Featured artists in the Passageway Art Gallery are Aiseborn, Eric Almanza, Kristina Ambriz, Jazmine Atienza, Susu Attar, Christen Austin, Moses X. Ball, Daniel Barajas, Chelle Barbour, April Bey, Javier Carrillo, Carolyn Castaño, Gregg Chadwick, Sean Cheetham, Cat Ferraz, Carla Jay Harris, Alepsis Hernández, Bodeck Luna Hernandez, Lanise Howard, Bryan Ida, Sheila Karbassian, Kaylynn Kim, Miles Lewis, José M. Loza, Cody Lusby, Rosalind McGary, Samuel Pace, Maria Piñeres, Adele Renault, LP Ǽkili Ross, Carlos Spivey, Edwin Ushiro, Dave Van Patten, J Michael Walker, Angela Willcocks.