Before the fire...

Sorry folks no Fire and Noise today.
I do not have power and things are a mess.
But all is well and I can't wait for things to melt.
Until next week, stay safe and warm.
love,
Megan

Megan Chapman: Fire and Noise

EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS BY ARTIST MEGAN CHAPMAN

Little Rock Arkansas– River Market ArtSpace will present Fire and Noise: The Paintings of Megan Chapman, featuring contemporary paintings by one of Northwest Arkansas’s most well-known artists. Opening reception will take place Friday, February 13, from 5-8pm, during downtown’s 2nd Friday Art Night, and the exhibit will run through March 7, 2009.

Megan Chapman's abstract paintings have always been about her love of color, and the subtle changes that occur when colors overlap, react, and create something new. In her latest body of work, "Fire and Noise," Chapman, in addition to using traditional canvas, explores a new surface called a Clayboard. This new surface allows her to scratch into the paint, removing the previous layers while creating lines and new textures. The title of her exhibition, "Fire and Noise," comes from the opening lyric of a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song entitled, "Do You Love Me." The artist was entranced by the dark passionate world created by the song and its video and has developed a body of work that reflects her feelings in response. The color red and other deep dramatic colors feature prominently within this body of work.

Megan Chapman was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She received her B.F.A. in painting from the University of Oregon. Chapman has shown her work over the past ten years in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington. Her work has appeared in various publications and is held in numerous collections.

River Market ArtSpace, located downtown in the Historic River Market District, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10am – 5pm. ArtSpace proudly represents the best in contemporary art and craft in the state of Arkansas.

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I have completed twenty new works for my upcoming exhibition. I am currently putting on the finishing touches and preparing them for delivery to the gallery in Little Rock, Arkansas. Next week I hope to have images of all twenty of these works available to post so I can share them with you, my lovely readers. If you have friends in and around the Little Rock area please let them know about my upcoming exhibition. Thanks always for reading and for your support of my work as an artist. It means more to me than you will ever know.

Pictured above on the postcard
The Unheard Music
24x30" Mixed media on Canvas
2008 $725

What is art for? A discourse...

Enjoy or loathe this video compiled by The Art Newspaper. After watching the video, lets have a discussion in the comment section shall we?

What is art for?
Share your personal take on this question or your personal reactions to the video.I will chime in as well.
Major update on Fire and Noise next week!

I remember slam dancing until 2 a.m.

Books...
University of Oregon
BFA terminal project
1999 Megan Chapman
This is one of my favorite books from the past.
(click to read the text)
I can see the foundations.
I can also see how I have started to censor myself too much.

I love you all.
X-Megan

The New...

Happy New Year...2009 is here.

I spent the first day of the new year painting, varnishing, and photographing paintings. I also read a great short story, and watched a fantastic movie. Since I am a Southern girl I also cooked my black eyed peas, greens, and cornbread. I also made sure not to sweep (yes I am a bit superstitious.) So, all in all things are off to a fantastic start. Thanks again to everyone who read and/or commented on my blog last year or last week. Even during the busy holiday week I had some of my highest numbers of readers to date. Thank you- I hope you all enjoyed it and that you will be back.

I had mentioned that one of my goals in the new year was to see more art, and I am happy to report I did go see the wonderful POST SECRET show at Crystal Bridges at the Massey in Bentonville, Arkansas.It is a real thrill that this show has come to the region. They have 450 of some of the best post cards from the post secret collection and if you are in the area or have the opportunity somewhere else to go to a post secret exhibition, I highly recommend it. The secrets are sometimes funny, painful, universal, and even occasionally hard to take, but when I left the show I felt glad to have absorbed it all and felt more human and connected for having done so. I even created my own post secret and left it in the mail box.

My main goal for this month is to wrap up and properly document my work for my exhibition Fire and Noise, that will open in Little Rock, Arkansas on Friday February 13th and close on March 7th at the River Market ArtSpace. I hope those in the area will take note and try to attend, I would love to see you at the reception on the 13th from 5-8pm.

I have thirteen pieces for the show currently, with many more in various states of progress. After all the holiday socializing and family visiting of the past few weeks, I am looking forward to locking myself away and focusing on tying my exhibition together and just painting. This sounds very good to me.I have decided to post the work in progress for Fire and Noise here, I am hoping that by posting these, it will allow me to look at them as a whole and see them as a body of work so that I may either edit them or note things that I can not always see in my crowded studio.

Some of you may have seen some or all of these before...(but this is the first time that all thirteen pieces(so far) of the show have been posted together in one place). Again I wish you great adventures, wonderful art, space and light in this new year.

Ring of Fire

This place inside

On a Monday

Emulsion

Stranger than kindness

The unheard music

At a loss for words

Baptism by fire

Shared mistakes

3 a.m.

To collect sounds

Through water and fire

Not to be undone


and I will close with one of my initial inspirations for this exhibition