 65
Corvette,
2009
This series of paintings is about my experiences helping my brother
Tom refurbish, and customize, his candy apple red 1965 Corvette. My parents were against it. My mother,
Anita Chiappone, an elementary school teacher,
opined that men who drive Corvettes are unfaithful.
Ironically my sister Gail married two men who drove Vettes.
When the car was finished, we were missing a single bolt for the
hood. Against my father's advice, he took the car out for a test
drive.
Within minutes the hood was torn off - flying over us and over his
friend David Hodge's car. The front was destroyed. Discouraged, he
sold the engine and body separately.
Tom Chiappone created the first programs to analyze the stock market
(NAVA Development's Patterns and Structure). Shortly after the
programs were finished, Tom died tragically in a car accident.
 Untitled,
no. 96 (Re·im·ag·ined),
2010
This painting is a
post painterly abstract deconstruction of Cindy Sherman's 1981
photograph Untitled #96. In 2011 a print was auctioned for $3.89
million - making it the most expensive photograph ever sold at the time.
I prefer to think of the meaning of an artwork as
infinite - not limited to what the artist intended, but open to new
interpretations by the viewer, so the more people that view a work
of art the more meaning it acquires. For me the orange linoleum is a symbolism of
the bad aesthetics of my youth; orange, avocado green, and gold were
common colors for appliances and home decor. Our house had linoleum in the kitchen.
My mother's high heel shoes punched a hole in the floor on the first
day we moved into the house. Linoleum embodied the fakeness, and cheapness, of the times.
The product is made
from that rubbery flexible skin of solidified linseed oil that forms on
the top of a
can of oil based paint, and it's applied to a canvas backing.
Cindy was an
art student at the same college I attended. The visual arts
department of Buffalo State College was a great place to be for
serious art
students. We were exposed to brilliant teachers, an art restoration
program, two Buffalo
campuses of the SUNY school system, the art exhibits at the
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Media Studies Buffalo, the
Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts, and
Artpark in nearby
Lewiston New York. Artpark's artist in residence program was uniquely
inspiring; great artist came from all over to participate. You could learn a lot in a single day from collaborating and watching
other
artists work.
Cindy started as a
painting major. Robert Longo was also an art student at the college,
and he convinced her to record her process of "dolling up" for
parties - dressing herself as different characters, cobbled
together from thrift-store clothing. This idea of dressing up as
other people for a self portrait struck me as a profound
interpretation of Zen. Of course this might not have been her intent
since enlightenment is a gift bestowed on very few people.
When we attended Buff State they were teaching painterly
abstraction. If I had not taken painting classes, my style would
probably be post painterly abstraction. The painterly approach did not lend itself to
what Cindy wanted to express, and she took up photography. "I could just
use a camera, and put my time into an idea instead," she said.
Other students at Buffalo State collaborated their efforts to learn
and master art and the art world; Charles Clough, Cindy Sherman,
Robert Longo, and Nancy Dwyer created Hallwalls Contemporary Arts
Center - a cooperative of artists who worked together to present
exhibitions. This was a powerful idea that was partly responsible
for the profound success of these students. When they first opened
the gallery, teachers were shocked that famous collectors, dealers, and artists
attended.
I was sidetracked from
art by taking philosophy classes, and changed my major to
philosophy. It was only later in life that I took up painting
again.
philosophical observations
©
2018
John Chiappone |
