ЧАД УИС

source: chadwys
I was born in Illinois in 1983 and I continue to live there today. Despite always having had the urge to grab a crayon or a camera, I’m something of an apprehensive artist. It has taken time for me to grow comfortable with sharing my work with others. As my voice has grown stronger, with ideas and critiques, I have found the prospect of sharing experiences through art quite advantageous. Incidentally, many of the conversations in my own work are about art itself. What does art mean to me? What purpose does it serve in my life and in the lives of other folks? What are the “boundaries” of the art experience? Are there any?
Deconstruction is a major part of my thought process in and out of the studio. Academically, I have pursued the study of art theory and criticism, finding it most rewarding to write about the problems and triumphs occurring in the art world today, as well as in the past. As a philosopher, I thoroughly enjoy taking contemporary ideas into the past and considering historical cultures, art, and artists in new ways. In my writing I use critical-theoretical frameworks to negotiate a more lucid and dynamic understanding of visual cultural traditions and how people interact with the visuality that permeates their lives.
A major strand throughout much of my artwork, beyond the broader inquirers into what art means socially, is the notion of object: object ownership, objectification of history, objectification of people, objectification of artwork and its many mediums; objectification of aesthetic pleasure; etc. I often explore/exploit the idea of objecthood: how we decorate our lives with arbitrary, as well as meaningful, things; how we objectify the ones we love and the strangers we see; how we objectify pain and death; how we objectify complex and sensitive cultural histories. I’m also deeply interested in understanding the reception of art, the reception of objects, and how extrinsic and intrinsic influences affect individuals’ reception of the visuality they experience.
My artwork is also, at its core, an experimentation in composition, color, and form. Through a variety of mixed media I have chosen as my inspiration a color palette that is at times complimentary and at other times purposfully contradictory, or seemingly destructive. The literal destruction of an object is secondary, in my mind, to the overall effect created by color (dis)harmony and the overall aesthetic-emotional experience of the reclaimed and reinvented object. I openly play with the allure of foreign and aggressive new colors and forms, inviting them into otherwise familiar and traditional settings. Barriers and obstacles are thereby erected between the viewer and the object through which one must negotiate an understanding of what is both present and hidden. What does the creation of new menaing tells us about old meanings, or meaning in general?
My readymade works frequently deal with the re-contextualization of decorative art objects. By retooling the object and then re-presenting it before the viewer I intend to add new layers to the conversation that takes place between the observer and the object in its original state. By reclaiming these objects I mean to acknowledge how our possessions (can/do) define us. In so many innumerable ways the bric-a-brac of our lives becomes a unit of measure of our own worth—I wish to subvert this measure. I enjoy infiltrating this territory of being and I revel in pointing to the superficial and the wonderfully imperfect character traits in all of us.
—the artist, 2012
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source: mutantspace
Chad Wys‘ digital collages, and in particular his ‘Nocturne’ series, are about deconstruction and the re-appropriation of images from art history, those images that we uphold as objects and in particular portraits. Through the recontextualizing and subverting of these cultural objects, and their meaning in an historical context, Wys reframes what we already know in a new way through the use of digital and traditional mediums. The purpose? To make us question what we’re looking at whether it be the colour, form, unity, identity or semiotics of the painting.
Wys isn’t doing anything new, the deconstruction of art and images is a fundamental part of the artistic process, it has been done since the beginning of time, but for him the very act of deconstruction is the question, it is part of his ongoing investigation into the nature of objectification and the question of art itself; what does it mean to us as a society, how do images affect us and so on. Here’s how he puts it:
A major strand throughout much of my artwork, beyond the broader inquirers into what art means socially, is the notion of object: object ownership, objectification of history, objectification of people, objectification of artwork and its many mediums; objectification of aesthetic pleasure; etc. I often explore/exploit the idea of objecthood: how we decorate our lives with arbitrary, as well as meaningful, things; how we objectify the ones we love and the strangers we see; how we objectify pain and death; how we objectify complex and sensitive cultural histories. I’m also deeply interested in understanding the reception of art, the reception of objects, and how extrinsic and intrinsic influences affect individuals’ reception of the visuality they experience.
A good example of how he deconstructs images and questions the notion of objectification is his series, ‘Nocturne’, in which he digitally manipulated Victorian portraits. Here’s what he has to say about the series:
I appropriated mainly Victorian imagery for my Nocturne series. Aesthetics—beauty or decoration over narrative or substance—were in vogue during that era. Negating that beauty is part of the conceptual process I go through. In selecting largely Victorian, Romantic, or Baroque imagery from history, I am negating much of the art’s purpose: which is to be beautiful and realistic (“a window into the soul” of the sitter, as it were). I focus exclusively on portraiture in the Nocturne series because that’s the most formal subject matter of all (aside from religious imagery, perhaps). We pay such reverence to portraiture in art history that to behave irreverently toward these formal renderings disrupts virtually every function of the original work. My work is meant to be a critique of the institution of art history, causing people to question their own allegiances to particular objects, styles, concepts, ideas, and even the people in their own lives.
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source: thelostinnocence
Se ne sono andati. Hanno provato a scappare, ma non ce l’hanno fatta. Almeno non del tutto.
La sensazione che si prova osservando queste immagini è difficilmente inquadrabile. Manca qualcosa, questo è certo, ma al contempo non manca più nulla. Come se l’errore, l’incompiutezza, la distanza dalla perfezione e la vicinanza alla perfettibilità ci scaldasse il cuore. Artisticamente parlando, ovviamente.
Il concetto del Ready made Duchampiano viene sostituito, rivisto o rivisitato che dir si voglia. Chad Wys è il fautore di questo cambio di prospettiva. Giovane artista (classe 1983) dell’Illnois, tramite le sue opere e il suo lavoro, indaga il concetto d’identità o di perdità di quest’ultima. Un ponte tra passato e presente, una rielaborazione sapiente di un’eleganza classica che si fa contemporanea.
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source: zupi
Chad Wys é o autor de uma obra polêmica. O artista recolhe quadros e esculturas que encontra por aí e adiciona a elas suas próprias ideias, estabelecendo uma relação (que é quase uma brincadeira) entre a arte e o kitsch – termo alemão usado para qualificar obras e objetos de valor estético distorcido, considerado inferior.
Além do trabalho que desenvolve nesses objetos, o artista também faz questão de modificar digitalmente obras consagradas na história da arte, subvertendo seus valores com diversas intervenções.