The Idea of America


Gregg Chadwick
Families Belong Together (MacArthur Park)
30"x36"oil on linen 2025

Gregg Chadwick
Evidence Based Science
30"x24"oil on linen 2018
AfAf Melees Collection, Greenbrae, California

Gregg Chadwick
Still I Rise
40"x30"oil on linen 2017
Jonathan Depina Collection, Warwick, Rhode Island


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

Gregg Chadwick
Keep 'em Flying
36”x36” oil on linen 2019
Private Collection, Los Angeles, California
Gregg Chadwick
Arrivals and Departures (June 26, 2015)
48”x36” oil on linen 2018
On June 26, 2015 Marriage Equality became the law of the land. With hundreds of others we celebrated on the Supreme Court steps. Later that glorious day, I chatted with President Obama’s official photographer Pete Souza in front of the White House which was lit up in rainbow colors in celebration of the LGBTQ community. While we watched, the Presidential Marine Corps unit arrived. Onboard was President Obama returning from his moving speech at the memorial service for the church folks who were gunned down by a young white supremacist in South Carolina. President Obama sang Amazing Grace that day. Arrivals and departures…

Gregg Chadwick
New York Minute
74"x44" oil on linen 2013
Private Collection, Orinda, California


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

Gregg Chadwick
Don't Shoot (March for Our Lives)
30"x22" Ink on Paper 2018

Gregg Chadwick
Kamala at Howard
20”x20” oil on linen 2020 

Gregg Chadwick
Anna May Wong
36"x48"oil on linen 2015
Ailsa Chang Collection, Culver City, California

Gregg Chadwick
The Future Is Woke
40"x30"oil on linen 2017

Gregg Chadwick
People's Pops - Stop and Frisk
8"x10"oil on panel 2014
Vilma Ortiz Collection, Los Angeles, California

Gregg Chadwick
Las Piedras del Cielo
18" x 24" oil on linen 2010

Gregg Chadwick
Love in Vain (Homage to Jim Jarmusch)
16”x20” oil on linen 2016


Gregg Chadwick
Pennsylvania 4901
(Transporting Bobby Kennedy's Coffin to Arlington Cemetery 1968)
54"x54" oil on linen 2014
Private Collection, Pebble Beach, California

Gregg Chadwick
America's Sons: From Ferguson, to Baltimore, to Minneapolis
24"x48" oil on linen 2014-2021
On Exhibit in Facing Darkness, 18th Street Art Center
In dialogue with Call and Echo is America’s Sons: From Ferguson, to Baltimore, to Minneapolis. Inspired by the poetry of Langston Hughes, the words and advocacy of Ta-Nehisi Coates, DeRay McKesson, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Black Lives Matter — my painting turns a spotlight on the stories of young black men who face racial profiling, harassment and often death at the hands of police in the US.

Gregg Chadwick
Occupy
40"x30"oil on linen 2012
Angela Hudson Collection, Los Angeles, California
Gregg Chadwick
Gold Mountain Railway (For Tammy Fong Heilemann)
20”x16” oil on linen 2016
Fong Collection, Long Beach, CA

Gregg Chadwick
Heavy Mex - Sergio Arau
12"x12"oil on panel 2018
David Seidler Collection, Los Angeles, California

Gregg Chadwick
Poem of L.A.
20" x 20 oil on linen 2010

Gregg Chadwick
Jersey Rain (Across the Tracks)
30"x40"oil on linen 2016

Gregg Chadwick
Star-Spangled Banner, Ferguson
64"x64"oil on linen 2014


Gregg Chadwick
Exposition Park
11”x14” oil on linen 2014
Carlo Siliotto Collection, Los Angeles and Rome, Italy

Gregg Chadwick
Gripman (San Francisco)
24”x18” oil on linen 2016

Gregg Chadwick
Heiwa (Homage to Masami Teraoka)
24"x24"oil on linen 2008

Gregg Chadwick
Call and Echo
24”x30” oil on linen 2011-2018
The young man in Call and Echo has been seen by many viewers as an homage to Emmett Till. Not a description of the unspeakable violence enacted on that young man in the 1950’s, but instead as a human being with personhood, with a face of innocence and cause. Inspired by a historic photo in the Library of Congress.

“Protest is, in its own way, a storytelling. We use our bodies, our words, our art, and our sounds both to tell the truth about the pain that we endure and to demand the justice that we know is possible. It is meant to build and to force a response.”

- DeRay McKesson




Paintings and sculptures at their best possess an uncanny ability to communicate ideas and feelings that words or other media are hard-pressed to convey. It seems that especially in times of struggle or unrest, art helps us connect to the personhood of others. Art creates dialogue. Dialogue promotes reflective discussion. And reflection can lead to change.


Artists often use their creations as a sort of reflecting device that mirrors and focuses the viewer’s attention on social and political unrest. As Marvin Gaye sang so poignantly — “What’s going on.”


Available online at Saatchi Art, Singulart