BEYOND WORDS: In Support of Black-led organizations Fighting for Social Justice and Equity

I’ve donated artwork to an online show and fundraiser where 100% of the sale of my work is donated to Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization. Thanks for your support. Info below.

Fritz Chesnut PERIOD RUSH, 2020 Acrylic on Paper 24 x 18 inches

Fritz Chesnut
PERIOD RUSH, 2020
Acrylic on Paper 24 x 18 inches


BEYOND WORDS:
In Support of Black-led organizations Fighting for Social Justice and Equity
June 26 - July 25, 2020

“What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”  —Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Where Do We Go From Here", 1967

If ever there was a moment where our words seem illogical, insufficient, and unworthy—if ever there was a moment where our actions counted—that moment is now. We know that we cannot bring back the countless lives of black women, men and transgender people who have suffered from police violence, and whose deaths by law enforcement, or other violent and hateful means, have not received justice, and who most certainly did not deserve to die. As we, as a greater public, awaken and acknowledge the systemic racism that is the foundation of our nation, we have a choice to make: to take action or be complicit to these atrocities. We must demand accountability in all levels of government, in our communities, and of ourselves.

We are emboldened by the efforts of these Black-led organizations advocating for crucial and fundamental change and want to support these endeavors. We at CULT are committed to supporting and contributing to organizations that fight for justice, safety, equal rights, respect and resources for people of color. We demand economic, racial and social justice, and call for full eradication of police terror.

Today we launch Beyond Words, a fundraising online exhibition supporting the following organizations with incredible donations of art from our community; 100% of sales proceeds will go to support these very crucial social justice efforts. We encourage you to join us.

Preview the exhibition here.

Artists included are:  Miya Ando, Drew Bennett, Fritz Chesnut, Dan Davis, Heather Day, Francesco Igory Deiana, Chris Duncan, Kori Girard, Rebekah Goldstein, Nicki Green, Dana Harel, Jamil Hellu, Trulee Hall, Sarah Hotchkiss, Koak, Natalie Krick, Amy Lincoln, Terri Loewenthal, Nion McEvoy Jr., Masako Miki, John Paul Morabito, Amy Nathan, James Sterling Pitt, Jenny Sharaf, Leslie Shows, Allison Smith, Dean Smith, Cate White, David Wilson, Lena Wolff, Henna Vainio, Ido Yoshimoto, Amber Jean Young, Ruxue Zhang

"Test Patterns" at there-there

My show "Test Patterns" opens Oct 3rd at there-there, 6-9pm. Show runs Oct 3rd through Oct 31st, 2019.

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there-there is pleased to present Test Patterns, an exhibition of process-driven abstract painting by Los Angeles based artist Fritz Chesnut.  

Chesnut’s newest body of work continues the evolution of his preoccupation with abstraction and its inherent tensions with acts of representation. Forms are conjured by heat, weight and tactility of the paint in and of itself. The surfaces are dynamic and distorted creating a kind of cartographic language, breaking with the grid. With this work, experimental geometries swell and warp.  

Inspirations can be seen in nature and in the environmental crisis. The fields are ridden with webs, trails and patterns. His topographical gestures are organic and automatic. Some works conjure the cosmos.

His minimal palette is often inspired by everything from punk zines and flyers to Warhol. His gestures include pouring, spraying, stenciling, printing and sanding.

These works are produced using screens, netting, fencing and industrial materials. By both stenciling and literally pressing the screen into paint, patterns appear and are distorted by gravity and water. In other paintings, trowels are used to form striated lines. Chesnut is interested in the movement of the works - appearing to be in an ambivalent state of formation or dissolution.  

He employs spray paint, through and across the surface of the painting, and in some instances lifts and moves the skin of the sprayed paint with water, enabling it to float and disperse.

The artist reveals, “The main event taking place is the interplay of materials, of oil and water producing a dance of resistance and cooperation. Everything settles into place”.

Fritz is interested in the duality of the structure of the hybridic paintings. Sometimes the work appears to mimic the photographic through play with depiction, dimension, image, space and surface. He sees the work structurally akin to the process by which geological evolution creates patterns or fractals in the earth’s surface.

Fritz Chesnut was born in 1973 in Santa Fe, New Mexico and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He received his BA from University of California, Santa Cruz in 1995 and his MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University in 1997. He has had solo exhibitions at c. nichols project, (Los Angeles), Country Club, (Los Angeles and Cincinnati), CULT/Aimee Friberg Exhibitions, (San Francisco) and Bellwether Gallery, (New York). His work has been seen in such venues as LAXART, Los Angeles, Public Fiction, Los Angeles, Pepin-Moore, Los Angeles, White Columns, New York, The Bronx Museum, New York, and Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, among many others.

there-there.co
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