Sometimes I love you...

Sometimes I love you and other stories from stewart bremner on Vimeo. Sometimes I love you... a short film by Stewart Bremner.

Oh what a week! Last night, Sometimes I love you and other stories opened at the Vault Gallery in the Fayetteville Underground. It was a lovely night, the crowds were amazing and the show looked great. I am happy to report that the evening concluded with four sales as well!

my paintings on the vault gallery walls

I am very proud of this exhibition and of myself for taking some risks in order to create the work. The glowing white paintings came together perfectly and transformed the gallery. The patrons who came to view the show last night were very receptive and their comments validated what I had to hoped to accomplish with this show. These works are my story and are intimate but at the same time they communicate something all of us feel and can relate to. The responses and stories I heard from people were also intimate and this was very special and moving to me. I heard stories about long distance relationships and new love, as well as from an older man who had just lost his wife. The words in one particular painting echoed his longing for and thoughts of her. Overcome with emotion, he was barely able to speak as he pointed to the painting that reminded him of his lost love. I soon became unable to speak as well. That moment in the night is one that I will hold close and remember always, his response was a gift to me and somehow my art was a comfort to him.

Last night was also a lovely reminder of how special the Fayetteville Underground is and how vibrant Fayetteville's art scene has become. The conversations, the interactions and the sheer number of people that attend First Thursday at the Underground is astounding. I feel very fortunate to live and work where I do and very proud of what I have helped the Underground achieve. My work has grown and expanded so much in the time I have had my studio at the Underground and my scope and reach within the art community both locally and internationally has as well. I am fortunate and grateful.

If you missed the opening of my exhibition, it will be on display throughout the month of September and gallery hours are W-F 12-7 and Saturday 10-5. Click here to listen to an interview on our local NPR station about the exhibitions at the Underground this month. If you have any questions about these works or would like to contact me personally about them or arrange for a tour of the show please don't hesitate to email me at megancha@gmail.com.

my paintings on the vault gallery walls

Thanks to all my friends near and far, my family, my art supporters and patrons. Thanks to my family of artists at the Fayetteville Underground. Thanks to Rodney Wilhite for the loan of his wonderful typewriter.

Love and thanks to Stewart Bremner for doing the impossible.

Next week! Sometimes I love you and other stories

Please consider this your personal invitation to my exhibition Sometimes I love you and other stories. I hope to see you on September 1 from 5-8pm in the Vault Gallery at the Fayetteville Underground. The twenty-one paintings are now complete. I am taking care of the final touches this week and signing and naming the works. I can't wait to see them all on the gallery walls and share them with you. It is always a thrill to see the works out of the cluttered working studio and into the spacious and well lit gallery.

Press Release:
Megan Chapman's latest series of paintings, Sometimes I love you and other stories, will be shown at the Fayetteville Underground during the month of September in the Vault Gallery. These monochromatic works are fused with words typed on paper torn from old books and give the viewer the sense of reading pages out of a diary or letters to a distant lover. Very minimal in nature, the work explores the artist's love of the graphite line, as it cuts through the brilliantly white-painted canvas.

The series reflects on the kind of love that catches one unexpectedly, the kind we always knew was somewhere on the planet yet was for others. At the same time that this love seems special or unique, it is also ordinary and known. It is both new and old and never simple or easy, yet somehow it fills the gaps within, making the core of the person it touches stronger.

Sometimes I love you and other stories represents the absence of fear and the challenges to our beliefs about ourselves and the world outside upon finding another soul that we can sometimes love.

Megan Chapman was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She received her B.F.A. in painting from the University of Oregon. She has shown her work over the past fifteen years in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Washington State, Washington D.C., Philadelphia PA, and recently in Liverpool, England. Megan's work has appeared in various publications and is held in numerous private collections both nationally and internationally.

4000 miles and an ocean

The most complicated plan
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

Things have been humming along in my studio in fits and starts. Yesterday was a particularly good day for painting as I finished some new works for my upcoming exhibition. I can't wait to get back to the studio today to finish up more of these latest paintings. My exhibition will be here before I know it. "Sometimes I love you and other stories," opens on September 1st from 5-8pm as part of the Fayetteville Underground's First Thursday artists' receptions. If you are local or regional or just happen to be passing through Fayetteville, I hope you will join me in the Vault Gallery. I would love to see you there.

This work might be different from what most would consider my style of painting. The addition of the typed words along with the paintings changes things. It is at once an aesthetic object to be enjoyed and viewed as a whole, as well as something that asks to be read and digested. Time is being asked of the viewer. One can't just give these works a cursory glance and move on as with traditional painting. If the words are not read, one may leave feeling cold, but if the viewer takes the time they will be rewarded. Across between poetry, love letters and slips of dreams on canvas, these minimalist paintings share my sense of longing for and separation from, someone I love. They also speak to the universal longing that we all feel at one time or another. The secret thoughts and wishful hopes, the romantic notions that float through our minds only to fade, are somehow caught on the canvas to remain a permanent reminder.

Within the exhibition there are also the other stories, the paintings that do not contain my words, yet still obviously tie into the series. Some of these pieces may have parts of books embedded within as well as the same color palette used throughout the show, mostly comprised of brilliant white, rusty orange, graphite and charcoal. Lines feature heavily in these works as well. My love of line has never been stronger than it is within this work. These lines reach out across the pure white, sometimes like vines, wires, sound waves, an electric current or even the ocean. Perhaps they are the threads that connect and sometimes break between people. These lines stretch and reach darkly across the white, searching.

There is a surface quality to this work that is a bit different from my previous work as well, it is a bit glossy and slick yet also waxy. I am really excited about this aspect, as many know I flirted with a waxy, foggy surface with my Secret Blocks, but this time I have found a new medium that does exactly what I have always wanted! It is very exciting to find and use a new tool in the studio.

I think you can tell I am pleased with how this body of work is shaping up and I could tell you more and analyze it further, but I really must get to the studio and get to work!!

Thank you always for your support and interest in my work. It helps so much to know you are out there and that you are keeping up with what is going on in the studio and beyond. I am very fortunate to have made so many friends and supportive collectors because of my art.

Until next week, keep fighting!
Remember the world needs your art.

She is beginning...

I am pleased to share a selection of works from my latest series with you this week. Here are ten works from Sometimes I love you and other stories. There will be twenty-one works in total for the exhibition that will be held in the Vault Gallery at the Fayetteville Underground in September. That is only three weeks away! I am looking forward to completing the series and seeing it on the gallery walls and sharing it with the public. I have a lot of work to do in the coming weeks but it is getting exciting as I see the show come together. I will share more images with you here as it gets closer to the exhibition.

As always thanks for your support. I hope you enjoy this sneak peek. If you have any questions about these works please do not hesitate to contact me either in the comments below or email me directly at megancha@gmail.com.

Something like this
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

As in a dream
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

Silently and still
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

If there is a way
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

The closing of eyes
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

The most complicated plan
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

She is beginning
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

And they were victorious
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

Too far away
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

This strange sense of containment
Mixed Media on Canvas 12x12"
© 2011 Megan Chapman
$250

A snap shot of my life

like the blinding light from when you were born
mixed media on Arches paper
© 2011 Megan Chapman

When most people in my time zone go to sleep, I wake up. It is midnight. I sit in the glow of my computer drinking water with a tea bag, there is no way the tea has steeped. I am impatient and restless, my shoulders and chest tight. Anxiety is taking over my body in the night. There are too many things up in the air, too many little open ended doubts and fears stirring within me. I remember this feeling from the past and I wish it would go away. I haven't been breathing, I haven't been exercising, I haven't been active in my recent life. I have lost myself again momentarily and this creeping anxiety and cement filled body is my reminder.

I feel like I haven't been painting but know this is a lie. I make note of the evidence. Since my last show in November 2010, I have painted one large commission, twenty maps of the night, twenty nine flashcards, ten letters never sent, nine co-paintings with Stewart, one random white painting and have started fourteen (more now) paintings in progress for my upcoming show in September 2011. This list relaxes me some. I reassure myself that the paintings count even when not on canvas. I also note that I have sold the commission, twenty maps, twenty seven flashcards, and so far, six letters never sent, one co painting with Scottish artist Stewart Bremner as well as many older color and white series works in this time period as well.

I remind myself that I did a little writing, singing and a lot photography during this time. I took up running for a six week stretch and took some good walks too. Stewart visited for five weeks, and I drove to Tulsa to see Interpol and went to Eureka Springs, two car trips/adventures I have never done before, at least not in the way I did them this time.

I also remind myself that I have been going through a separation and divorce during this time, as well as the thrill of developing an exciting and complex relationship with Stewart who is more than 4,000 miles away. I have also been supporting myself solely from the sale of my art since September 2010 when I became separated, something I wasn't sure I would ever be able to do. It hasn't been easy but it has increased my confidence.

I have helped manage and run a non profit organization seeing it reach new heights and new struggles. It's latest struggle being that we have to be out of the building by January 15th. So we have to find a new home for four galleries and fifteen studios or severely downsize. Managing and creating the programing for the Fayetteville Underground has not been easy but it has been rewarding and one of the best achievements in my life to date. I have helped bring amazing art to my town, I have helped artists promote their work and have tried to be a mentor and supportive friend to many. I love my underground family.

I have remained in contact with friends near and far as well, and created new friendships. I have also seen my parents regularly, for monthly visits. I could have done all of this better I am sure. I have had some hard, sad times, as well as some depressive episodes. However, when I look at this list I know I am doing amazing things with my life. I know I am not letting my time on the planet go to waste. I am a thinking and feeling woman, passionate and kind, well rounded and engaged. I am exploring and growing everyday, becoming more of the person I want to be in fits and starts, imperfectly. I love, I worry, I create, and I am doing alright.

Thanks for being a part of the journey and for supporting me and my art. Until next week, keep fighting...

Graphite lines & yellowed paper: a love story

a strange sense of containment
12x12" mixed media on canvas
© 2011 Megan Chapman

I've been busy in the studio this week and it has felt really good. I currently have sixteen new paintings under way for my upcoming exhibition, "Sometimes I love you and other stories." I have ten that are complete and some that are close. I have a lot more work to do and time feels like it is running out. I need to start thinking about my statement for this work and have the paintings documented for publicity purposes and my records.

I plan to work over the weekend and get a lot more done. I am very pleased with what is happening so far. These works are brilliantly white and clean, very spare and minimal. I have never been in love with pencil lines like I am in this moment. Then to top it off are the words, stray thoughts like poetry against the pages of discarded books, public letters to a distant lover embedded in the paint. To many this concept in my work will be brand new, to me it is a full circle moment. It was in the pages of discarded books that I found my voice in the B.F.A. program at the University of Oregon. Oh the stories I would spin! Some autobiographical and some completely fictitious. My scrawl across the pages, charcoal, pencil and white paint surrounding my words.

I am not returning to the past but perhaps I am righting my course. I have been working on that process for the last two years, starting in 2010 with the manual for living, the white series, maps of the night, the flashcards, and the letters never sent. These are all a part of one canon of work, perhaps my most intimate one.

I will always love rich layers of color, texture, space, and design based shapes. You can still find those works in my studio and in galleries but I will also love my monochromatic worlds that speak from my heart and that remind me of my story. I hope these new works will remind you of your story too.

Here is a scratchy outline of a possible statement...

Sometimes I love you and other stories...
September 2011
Vault Gallery
Fayetteville Underground

This series of paintings explores the kind of love that catches you unexpectedly. You always knew it was there somewhere on the planet but it was for other people. At the same time that this love sounds special or unique it is also ordinary and known. It is new and old at the same time. Never simple or easy it somehow fills the gaps within, making the core of the person it touches stronger. A rebuilding takes place after years of personal neglect.

Sometimes I love you and other stories represents the absence of fear and the challenges to our beliefs about ourselves, the world outside, and finding another soul that you can sometimes love. How do you paint a questioning love? How do you paint passion? The first moment you touch or the first argument? How do you paint the freedom and inspiration found in another?

I have no idea....but I can't wait to dive in and try.

and sometimes life gets in the way...

like the blinding light from when you were born
© 2011 Megan Chapman

There has been a lot going lately. I mean a lot... let's just say it has been a stressful time and that would be putting it mildly. I am doing well and there are so many things I am excited and happy about that are going on, but in general things could be a little better.

I have an exhibition, "Sometimes I love you and other stories" that opens September 1st 2011. That is right around the corner! Am I ready for the exhibition? No...life got in the way. Will I be ready? Of course and I am looking forward to the next few intense weeks as I switch gears and sequester myself and dive into the work. I plan on spending some serious hours in the studio in the coming days.

Do I have more to say? Probably, but I can't say it right now. I am thankful for all my friends, family, all my art patrons and for all the love and support in my life. Thank you.

Until next week keep fighting...

ps. If you haven't checked out my etsy shop in a while please do, there might be a letter there for you.