Artists Interview Artists: Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick, an artist from San Francisco, CA, participates in the Artists Interview Artists Project. Below Gregg responds to another artist's five questions (Marsha Stein from Washington, D.C.). In order to participate, Gregg had to provide me with five questions for some other artist to answer. The assigning of questions to artists is completely random. If you're an artist and interested in participating, let me know.

The Crossing
oil on linen
72"x48"
2004

1. What is your intention?

Within my work I aim to distill ideas and processes into richly nuanced, painterly and mysterious artworks that evoke image, mood and substance. I strive for the numinous. History, beauty, politics, literary references, the tension and cross-pollination of travel, spirituality, sex and at times death – all find their way in.

2. How do you start?

Before I put fresh paint onto linen, I need to find a place of mental and internal balance. My painting, “A Balance of Shadows”, features a figure suspended on a tightrope. It is a fitting visual metaphor for my creative practice. I find that I must reach a point of balance within my life that enables me to create. In a Buddhist sense, “being awake” is of the utmost importance. I read voraciously- history, poetry, and art.

I start the physical process by making paint. The materials are so important. Almost every work has one or more colors that I grind by hand with muller, pigment and oil.

I start the painting itself with the remembrance of a moment. It could be the glint of light on a passerby as she hurries to work or a chance meeting with a writer or another image maker. Such a chance meeting with the Russian photojournalist Yevgeny Khaldei, best known for his iconic image: “Raising the Red Flag Over the Reichstag”, provided clues on how to weave the pulse of history into my paintings. Last week at a conference in San Francisco, the Dalai Lama stopped, smiled deeply and gazed into my eyes. I felt called to paint the moment and the spirit of peace that filled the room. Such an encounter will fuel many future beginnings.

3. Do you get in the zone, or are you always aware of what you are doing?

While I’m working on an artwork I don’t just settle for the middle ground or main image. I work the edges and the spaces between. I am hoping to create works that breathe across the whole surface. I desire to find a point of “satori”, a place of spiritual balance within the work itself. There is a need within my painting to let go and trust the inner process. When I reach this point, time loses its power, my senses are heightened. I just paint. It could be minutes, or hours; it is the work and I. Raymond Carver in his amazing poem, “The Painter and the Fish” describes this sort of artistic epiphany.

When I have pushed a work as far as it will go in a session, I use Hemingway’s tool. To enable my return to a work in process I am a firm adherent of leaving a work only when I know exactly where to start when I return. Hemingway would leave a manuscript in process with a line that he knew how to complete in his mind but which was incomplete on the page. When Hemingway returned to write all he needed to do to begin again was to complete the unfinished line and continue writing.

4. How do you know when you're finished?

My work is an open-ended mix of spontaneous moments and ruthless decisions, a series of entrances and exits. When there is a balance between ambiguity and intention, and a tension that suggests expectation but also fullness, the work is nearing completion.

As a painting nears completion I remain aware of the Japanese aesthetic concept of wabi-sabi: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.

When a painting seems to be finished I ask, “Is the work open enough to allow the viewer to enter into the painting and find their own path or story?” If not, I dive back in again.

5. Are you influenced by other artists, past or present, or do you stand alone in your vision?

My artistic influences reach back like a thread through history from my contemporaries Laila Carlsen, Montien Boonma, Wim Wenders -- through my teachers Sam Amato, Lee Mullican, Jan Stussy -- through their colleagues and teachers-Diebenkorn, Kitaj, Hockney, Rothko, de Kooning, and Bacon -- back through Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne -- to Degas, Manet, Ingres, Turner, Hiroshige and Hokusai, Goya, Blake, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velazquez, Titian, Giorgione, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Masaccio.

Une Passante ( for czeslaw milosz)
oil on wood
13.75" x 10"
2005

Previous Interviews:
Juno Doran (questions by James W. Bailey)
Josh Feldman (questions by Joseph Barbaccia)
Lisa Stephenson (questions by Whitney Lynn)
Joseph Barbaccia (questions by Josh Feldman)
James W. Bailey (questions by Matt Hollis)
Matt Hollis (questions by Juno Doran)
Carol Es (questions by James Leonard)
Alexandra Silverthorne (questions by Ami Lahoff)
Christine Buckton Tillman (questions by Carol Es)
Douglas Witmer (questions by Alexandra Silverthorne)
Sky Pape (questions by Douglas Witmer)
Whitney Lynn (questions by Lisa Stephenson)
Heather Levy (questions by Joanne Greenbaum)
Heather Lowe (questions by Samantha Wolov)
Samantha Wolov (questions by Heather Levy)
Timothy McClellan (questions by Heather Lowe)
James Leonard (questions by Sky Pape)
Joanne Greenbaum (questions by Timothy McClellan)
Richard Kooyman (questions by Robert Walton)
Candy Keegan (questions by Warren Craghead)
Robert Walton (questions by Candy Keegan)
John M. Adams (questions by Richard Kooyman)
Prescott Moore Lassman (questions by Mary Addison Hackett)
Mary Addison Hackett (questions by Prescott Moore Lassman)
Andrew Wodzianski (questions by Nathan Manuel & D.Billy)
Nathan Manuel & D.Billy (questions by Andrew Wodzianski)
Michael Janis (questions by Scott Listfield)
Scott Listfield (questions by Michael Janis)
F. Lennox Campello (questions by Sean Hennessy)
Matt Andrade (questions by Adrian Parsons)
Sean Hennessy (questions by F. Lennox Campello)
George Wayne (questions by Michelle McAuliffe)
Eridanus Sellen (questions by Anabela Jevtovic)
Anabela Jevtovic (questions by Eridanus Sellen)
Marianela de la Hoz (questions by A.B. Miner)
Martin Henry (questions by Barbara Johnson-Gresser)
A.B. Miner (questions by George Wayne)
Barbara Johnson-Gresser (questions by Martin Henry)
Adrian Parsons (questions by Matt Andrade)
Heather Schmaedeke (questions by Patricia Hartnett)
Anthony Easton (questions by Melissa Kennedy)
Roz Leibowitz (questions by Anthony Easton)
Melissa Kennedy (questions by Tracy Lee)
Michelle McAuliffe (questions by Marianela de la Hoz)
Tim Folzenlogen (questions by Jason Hanasik)
Rob Willms (questions by Dott Schneider)
Marsha Stein (questions by Gregg Chadwick)
Jason Hanasik (questions by Tim Folzenlogen)
John LeKay (questions by Rosa Naparstek)
Brock Neilson (questions by Richard Vosseller)
Rosa Naparstek (questions by Howard Salmon)
Patricia Hartnett (questions by Verta Reyes)
William Andrews (questions by Bean Gilsdorf)
Howard Salmon (questions by John LeKay)
Corey Amaro (questions by Jason Dean and Matt Nash)
Michael Grayeagle (questions by Chris Ashley)
Marion Boddy-Evans (questions by Deborah Fisher)
Richard Vosseller (questions by Brock Neilson)
Deborah Fisher (questions by Corey Amaro)
Eileen Wold (questions by Michael Grayeagle)
Rob Myers (questions by William Andrews)

Comments

[Elin]

I found this interesting. We are also some artists blogging on Journalspace: Notes from The Studio.

[Masami Teraoka]

Dear Gregg,

It was a great pleasure to meet you at the opening. Thanks so much for your great email note. I received it while we were traveling. We just got back from Japan. Please let know know your email address since I cannot seem to be able to find your email. Thanks.

Talk to you soon.

Aloha,
Masami Teraoka