Bernard Chadwick: Synesthesia, opening reception Saturday, June 2, 6 - 8pm.






Bernard Chadwick
Synesthesia
June 2 - July 7, 2012

Opening Saturday, June 2, 6 - 8pm

gallery km is very pleased to present Bernard Chadwick's Synesthesia, the Los Angeles artist's first solo show with the gallery. The exhibition consists of a range of mediums and forms exploring the physicality of sound and vision, including abstract patterns of color and light which are screen-projected and matched with sound recordings, intensely colored painting-sculpture hybrids, and wall pieces formed from newsprint and ink. 
 
Chadwick’s artwork aims to dissect elements of sound—how it shapes environments and social structures—by evaluating the political and sociological implications of how people relate to each other within realms of music and the production of sound based cultural commodities.  He uses video, performance, multimedia installation, and sculpture to create a personally crafted ontology of sound and its relationship to the visual, often pushing and expanding concepts about sound, acoustics, and theory of music through their visual counterparts like color, movement and physical materials.
 
Broken or partial plaster casts of instruments, speakers, amplifiers, cases and other various objects associated with the act of playing live music appear throughout the exhibition, and they seem to offer and then torque the kind of present-tense experience associated with live performance. Visual absorption and reflection of paint, mirrored surfaces, or projected images bump up against sound textures. A more narrative video is projected onto a plaster representation of one of the tools that may have been used in the construction of the music on view. The pieces are presented as constantly in process rather than as static forms, as even works mounted to the wall in a more traditional format require an almost-participatory closeness from the viewer.
 
The genesis for the work in Synesthesia comes from Chadwick’s personal history as a musician and visual artist, and his long consideration of the ways in which the active stimuli of each form effects both audience and artist, and the conversation between the two. By breaking down the otic and the optic into their basic elements and then shifting their relationship to one another, Chadwick creates a cross-dialogue of sensory experience and reaction, promoting a sense of challenge and play to physical and intellectual schematic boundaries.
 
The gallery will host a reception for the artist on Saturday June 2, from 6 to 8pm, as well as two Listening Events in conjunction with the exhibition, at 7:30pm Thursday, June 14th, and 7:30pm Thursday June 28th.
 
Bernard Chadwick is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, CA. He received a MFA from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA, in 2010 where he focused on conceptual sound installation, with a final graduate exhibition titledSomewhere There's Music. He has exhibited and performed throughout Los Angeles.
 
 
For more information, please visit our website.

gallery|km
2903 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90404
310.828.1912
info@gallerykmLA.com