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
A Traveling Solo Exhibition of New Paintings
Next Stop - The Other Art Fair
March 15-18, 2018
Stay Tuned for More Dates and Locations!
Click Here for More Images of Artwork in Mystery Train
Read More on Mystery Train in the Huffington Post and the Wall Street International.
Gregg Chadwick
Mystery Train (20th Century Limited)
60”x48” oil on linen 2016
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
L Ross Gallery
December 1 - 30, 2017
5040 Sanderlin Ave, Suite 104, Memphis, TN
My painting Memphis Train (Arcade Restaurant) was featured in the L Ross Gallery’s Holiday Exhibition show. More at: L Ross Gallery Holiday Exhibition
The Clark Hulings Fund
For the past year, I was honored to be a fellow in the Clark Hulings Fund Business Accelerator Program. With no financial cost to myself, I was able to dig deep and learn how to keep my art business thriving. I have recently learned that I was chosen to be an Executive Fellow at CHF for 2018. The Clark Hulings Fund is helping me learn how to take my Mystery Train Exhibition on tour. The Executive Fellows will receive the services of CHF to rewrite the fellow’s Investment Grade Proposal (IGP) for capitalization and underwriting to get it to the point CHF can pitch it to potential funders. Meanwhile CHF expects the fellow to continue executing on their project, and collaborating with CHF with monthly field reports and meetings, along with marketing assistance given to the fellow. Please join me for the journey ahead.
Link to my recent Clark Hulings Fund podcast with Daniel DiGriz.
Gregg Chadwick
City Lights (Chaplin's Night)
48”x36” oil on linen 2017
Gregg Chadwick’s booth at the inaugural Los Angeles edition of The Other Art Fair in Downtown Los Angeles was filled with collectors and art lovers during the four days of the fair. Chadwick exhibited a selection of artworks from his traveling exhibition Mystery Train, which examines the mythos of America as seen through the physical and cultural history of the railroad in the United States, and also a new series of works that engage the viewer in the story of Los Angeles.
Hosted at the Majestic Downtown, and presented by the world's leading online art gallery Saatchi Art, the Other Art Fair showcased work by 89 artists, each hand picked by a selection committee of art world experts.
The Other Art Fair made its LA debut at the Majestic Downtown from March 15th – 18th 2018. For more information about the fair program visit la.theotherartfair.com
The Other Art Fair
