Sergio Arau Meets Sergio Arau
Sergio is a close friend and we often speak deeply about art, love, time, and politics. I remember him telling me the story of meeting the revolutionary Ché late one night in his father's Mexico City kitchen. Perhaps the Academy Award winning screenwriter who purchased "Heavy Mex" at The Other Art Fair in Los Angeles in 2018 will write a film starting with that moment.

Gregg Chadwick,
Frida Cano (E Line)
37" x 24" oil on linen 2021
On exhibit in 𝙒𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙚… 𝙋𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙈𝙚𝙩𝙧𝙤 𝙍𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙗𝙮 𝙇𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨. Union Station, Los Angeles, California

Frida Cano Meets Frida Cano
On exhibit in 𝙒𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙚… 𝙋𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙈𝙚𝙩𝙧𝙤 𝙍𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙗𝙮 𝙇𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨. Union Station, Los Angeles, California

Gregg Chadwick
Kamala at Howard
20”x20” oil on linen 2020 
Tiffany Montgomery Collection, Dallas, Texas

Gregg Chadwick
Yareli Arizmendi
40"x30"oil on linen 2011
Yareli is a brilliant actress, writer, and director
She rose to prominence with her role as Rosaura in the film "Like Water for Chocolate."
Yareli Arizmendi and Sergio Arau Collection, Hollywood, California

Gregg Chadwick
Nikole Hannah-Jones (The Idea of America)
36”x36” oil on linen 2021
 

Gregg Chadwick
H.E.R.
36”x36” oil on linen 2021
 

Gregg Chadwick
Purple Rain (Prince Rogers Nelson)
24"x18" oil on linen 2016

Gregg Chadwick
Changes - David Bowie
41.5"x25.5"pastel on paper 2016

Gregg Chadwick
The Call - Need
36"x48"oil on linen 2009

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."

Gregg Chadwick
American Dreams - Barack Obama
16"x20"oil on linen 2008

Gregg Chadwick’s portrait of Anna May Wong was included in the exhibition - Fresh Faces: New Portraits by Los Angeles Artists presented by Saatchi Art. Anna May Wong was the first Chinese American film star, and the first Asian American actress to gain international recognition. Her acting career went from silent films to talkies, to stage, to radio, and to television.Born in Los Angeles, a few blocks from Chinatown, Anna May Wong's career has been an inspiration for many. My painting was created as an homage to Anna, sourced from numerous photo stills and film clips from the era. Exhibit ran from March 24 through May 13, 2016.
Ailsa Chang Collection, Culver City, California

Gregg Chadwick
Scarlet Shadow
80"x80" oil on linen 2018

My painting "Heavy Mex " carries Sergio Arau into a Los Angeles rock club where he wildly strums his fender guitar.

He is the son of film director Alfonso Arau and the husband of the brilliant actress, writer, and director Yareli Arizmendi.
Sergio Arau rose to prominence as a founding member of the band Botellita de Jerez formed in 1983.

(Exhibited and sold at The Other Art Fair, Los Angeles 2018)
David Seidler Collection, Los Angeles, California

Gregg Chadwick
1619
30”x22” gouache on paper 2019
Private Collection, Los Angeles
(Exhibited and sold at The Other Art Fair, Los Angeles 2019)
 

Gregg Chadwick - Cassiel's Flags 24"x24" oil on linen 2020
Portrait of Cassiel with a flag from the Drago Contrada di Siena floating behind her alluding to a childhood journey to Italy where I purchased a small Drago flag for her. Dragons featured later in her life as well in her love of the novel “Seraphina” by Rachel Hartman. In “Seraphina” humans and dragons 🐉 live in an uneasy peace. Dragons can at times take human form so they are fluid. Most of all dragons want to be loved, to belong, and to find peace in self-acceptance. As Cassiel came out as transgender, she offered this book to us as a way to understand.

“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, Memphis, Tennessee

Gregg Chadwick
The King's Laurels (Elvis With Headphones)
14"x12" pastel and gouache on paper 2021

Recently the rising painter Gregg Chadwick chose to portray my white-bearded, thoroughly furrowed face from memory. He deliberately blurred things, leaving one crystal-clear eye to see, appreciate, and speak for me.
I regard this 'Looking Good' picture as my most poetic likeness..."- Alexander Eliot

Gregg Chadwick
This Machine Kills Fascists - Woody Guthrie
14"x11"oil on linen 2012
Peter Himmelman Collection, New York/ Los Angeles

Gregg Chadwick
Carrie Fisher - We Are the Resistance
12"x12" oil on panel 2018
Pepi Kelman & Coles Brewer Collection, Pacific Palisades, California

Gregg Chadwick
MarySue Heilemann
48"x36"oil on linen 2004
Heilemann Collection, Santa Monica, California

Gregg Chadwick
A Dream of Water (Nicole Christensen)
48"x36"oil on linen 2002
Nicole Christensen Collection, Sydney, Australia

Gregg Chadwick
A Walk With Obama
6"x4"oil on panel 2019
Private Collection, Dallas, Texas
(Exhibited and sold at The Other Art Fair, Dallas 2019)

UCLA School of Nursing Dean Hassenplug Meets President Lyndon Johnson at the White House, 1964
36"x36"oil on linen 2019
UCLA School of Nursing Collection