Greta Chapin McGill
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Empress
Acrylic resin on canvas, 20 x 16 in., 2015, $850
Acrylic resin on canvas, 20 x 16 in., 2015, $850
Inspired by the colors of the journey of tribal religions around the globe. The EMPRESS celebrates the manifestation of the transition from darkness to light in the most colorful global traditions CARNIVAL.
About The Artist
Artist Statement
“ My art is an expression of color, fantasy, and passion. I grew up to the music of the African American experience of my time, from Motown to Miles. My parents had an extensive and eclectic music collection. One of my fondest memories is of going to a classical music concert at Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. I remember my Dad telling me to close my eyes and see the music. I discovered color when my parents sent me to Saturday morning art classes, my life was transformed. Pastels, water colors, oil paints and brushes became a very shy girls’ best friends. The smell of the oil paint was intoxicating, allowing me to retreat into a world colored by me. Along with white gloves and finishing school manners, my parents gave me creativity, curiosity, artistic and political awareness.
As a painter of dreams, I have taken those gifts to the places I read about under the covers of my bed lit with my father’s flashlight.Creating a personal celebration everyday. Living and studying in European capitols of art and architecture, the heat of the Caribbean and the rocky silences of Northern New Mexico. I always find the color, the music and the love in everything. I try different techniques to achieve what my mind is seeing. Influenced by the art of Paris in 1900, the collection of Henry Barnes, and the 1913 Armory Show. The colors of Kente cloth, the Shona sculpture of Zimbabwe, Modigliani, Bearden, Lois Mallou Jones Jacob Lawrence and Derain, the Viennese Sessionist Movement, Leger, and Picasso. Contemporary artists Leon Berkowitz and the Washington Color School and Henry Jackson I am abstractly real in my work and in my life. I paint, to bring these creations from the invisible to the visible.”
Bio
Chapin McGill studied painting and art history at Howard University and The Corcoran School of Fine Art. She spent time living in Florence italy, the birthplace of renaissance art. The museums and churches throughout tuscany became pivotal influences along with color and “absorbed DNA” of the diaspora, Jacob Lawrence, Lois Mailou Jones, Romere Bearden. Color, shape and form are evident in every work. Most recently Chapin Mcgill visited and sketched in the studio of Paul Cezzane in Aix-en -Provence France. Her international influences produce an artist finding color, music and sensuality in everything .
Recent exhibitions
Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts
Fredericksburg, VA,
El Museo de Cultural; Roots and Culture of the African Diaspora, Santa Fe New Mexico, Art for
Health; three city benefit exhibition for the Tikar People of Cameroon,
Art International Zurich Switzerland
Carrousel du Louvre.Paris
ArtExpo Milan 2015, Milan Italy,
ArtExpo 2015 New York, NY,
Ragusa Ibla, Sicily 2015,
Pepco Gallery Light of the Ancestors,
Gallery NK Washington DC Solo exhibition 2015.
“ My art is an expression of color, fantasy, and passion. I grew up to the music of the African American experience of my time, from Motown to Miles. My parents had an extensive and eclectic music collection. One of my fondest memories is of going to a classical music concert at Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. I remember my Dad telling me to close my eyes and see the music. I discovered color when my parents sent me to Saturday morning art classes, my life was transformed. Pastels, water colors, oil paints and brushes became a very shy girls’ best friends. The smell of the oil paint was intoxicating, allowing me to retreat into a world colored by me. Along with white gloves and finishing school manners, my parents gave me creativity, curiosity, artistic and political awareness.
As a painter of dreams, I have taken those gifts to the places I read about under the covers of my bed lit with my father’s flashlight.Creating a personal celebration everyday. Living and studying in European capitols of art and architecture, the heat of the Caribbean and the rocky silences of Northern New Mexico. I always find the color, the music and the love in everything. I try different techniques to achieve what my mind is seeing. Influenced by the art of Paris in 1900, the collection of Henry Barnes, and the 1913 Armory Show. The colors of Kente cloth, the Shona sculpture of Zimbabwe, Modigliani, Bearden, Lois Mallou Jones Jacob Lawrence and Derain, the Viennese Sessionist Movement, Leger, and Picasso. Contemporary artists Leon Berkowitz and the Washington Color School and Henry Jackson I am abstractly real in my work and in my life. I paint, to bring these creations from the invisible to the visible.”
Bio
Chapin McGill studied painting and art history at Howard University and The Corcoran School of Fine Art. She spent time living in Florence italy, the birthplace of renaissance art. The museums and churches throughout tuscany became pivotal influences along with color and “absorbed DNA” of the diaspora, Jacob Lawrence, Lois Mailou Jones, Romere Bearden. Color, shape and form are evident in every work. Most recently Chapin Mcgill visited and sketched in the studio of Paul Cezzane in Aix-en -Provence France. Her international influences produce an artist finding color, music and sensuality in everything .
Recent exhibitions
Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts
Fredericksburg, VA,
El Museo de Cultural; Roots and Culture of the African Diaspora, Santa Fe New Mexico, Art for
Health; three city benefit exhibition for the Tikar People of Cameroon,
Art International Zurich Switzerland
Carrousel du Louvre.Paris
ArtExpo Milan 2015, Milan Italy,
ArtExpo 2015 New York, NY,
Ragusa Ibla, Sicily 2015,
Pepco Gallery Light of the Ancestors,
Gallery NK Washington DC Solo exhibition 2015.
