Gregg Chadwick
Gregg Chadwick
Rio Grande
30”x40” oil on linen 2015
I grew up with the rails of America in my blood. My grandfather Arthur Desch, worked as a fireman stoking coal in steam engines before he advanced to train engineer on the Jersey Central Line. Parties and family gatherings in my grandparent’s home brought the rhythms of the rails home. In their clean but Jersey dank basement, the sounds of railroad workers echoed in the music my aunts and cousins played in the shadows of the train lines outside. From Junior Parker, to Elvis Presley, to Bob Dylan, to Johnny Cash, to The Band, to Bruce Springsteen, to Michael McDermott, to arts writer Greil Marcus, to film writer and director Jim Jarmusch, the enduring mythos of America and its legacy has been wrapped in the blues notes of the song Mystery Train. Recently, while flipping through my mom’s carefully tended scrapbook, I found black and white memories of my family’s yearnings, struggles, and triumphs. Whispers of cellar mysteries found their way back into my thoughts and dreams. Today as I paint, a current song by Gary Clark Jr., When My Train Pulls In, propels me back into memories of earlier sounds of passion and propulsion. My current series of paintings, Mystery Train, is steeped in these powerful echoes of those machine days.
Mystery Train
Stay Tuned for Dates and Locations!
A Traveling Solo Exhibition of New Paintings
Click Here for More Images of Artwork in Mystery Train
Read More on Mystery Train in the Huffington Post:
and the Wall Street International.
http://wsimag.com/art/19040-gregg-chadwick-mystery-train
Gregg Chadwick
Mystery Train (20th Century Limited)
60”x48” oil on linen 2016
Gregg Chadwick
Flor De Asfalto (for Sergio Arau)
56”x86” oil on linen 2017
August 2 - 31, 2017
5040 Sanderlin, Suite 104, Memphis, Tennessee 38117
901-767-2200 art@lrossgallery.com
“Gregg Chadwick takes the opposite stance in the oil-on-linen Elvis Presley (Suspicion). Here, a familiar depiction of the singer is rendered in blurry, shadowy lines, as if his memory is slowly fading and becoming the stuff of rumor and legend tending toward oblivion.”
- Fredric Koeppel, The Commercial Appeal
With his music, words and images, Sergio Arau has inspired me to create a series of paintings that feature him as the main character in my painted movies. Rock Star, actor, director, screenwriter, and artist Sergio Arau has often performed while wearing gear honoring Mexico's most famous wrestling star El Santo (The Man In the Silver Mask). Known as lucha libre, Mexican wrestlers such as El Santo are defenders of the poor and vulnerable. By taking on the persona of the Luchador (wrestler), Josh Kun writes in Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America, Sergio Arau and his bands have mixed "the traditional with the contemporary, the rural with the urban, the American with the Mexican, the charro with the rockero."
My paintings in Luchador's Dream carry Sergio Arau into a Los Angeles seemingly pulled from the lyrics of his songs or gathered from scenes of his films that were left on the cutting room floor.
Gracias Sergio!
The exhibition ran from September 7 - October 7, 2017
(Luchador's Dream is, in true rock n' roll fashion, a completely unaffiliated, and unofficial satellite exhibition of 2017: Año de México en Los Ángeles / Mexico in Los Angeles 2017)
Luchador’s Dream
Gregg Chadwick
City Lights (Chaplin's Night)
48”x36” oil on linen 2017
In my thirteen years at the Santa Monica Art Studios, I have opened my studio to visiting collectors, art writers, students, local groups, scholars, and international guests. Visitors to my studio have included a bus load of Japanese nursing students from Tokyo, a group of academics from the University of Verona in Italy,
professional art conservators from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Getty Museum, a group art meditation session led by noted art writer Peter Clothier, as well as numerous visits by Santa Monica students interested in the arts and culture.
At the Santa Monica Art Studios, I am part of a community of artists - driven to create, share knowledge and experience, and help the community at large.
This week, I would be honored to have you join the long list of visitors to my studio #15 at the Santa Monica Art Studios.
Hope to see you soon!
What: 13TH ANNIVERSARY OPEN STUDIOS
(New Paintings by Gregg Chadwick in Studio #15)
Where: Studio #15, Santa Monica Art Studios, 3026 Airport Ave. SM 90405
When: Opening Night - Saturday, October 21, 2017, 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Gregg Chadwick's Studio Will Also be Open:
Thursday, October 19th 12-6 pm
Friday, October 20th 12-3 pm
Sunday, October 22 12-5 pm
Website: www.greggchadwick.com
Link to my recent Clark Hulings Fund podcast with Daniel DiGriz.
