Genesis Chapman: New Works

Water is where life begins. It determines if an environment is habitable, and what organisms can exist. It is only by its continued presence that our own existence is assured. It also has the power to erode mountains and change the terrain of every facet of our planet. This creative and destructive power as embodied in a small creek Genesis Chapman’s childhood home in rural Virginia is at the focus of this exhibition. In his work he asks what it means to love and identify with a place, to call it home, and to watch it change.

Through meticulous marking, Chapman distills his emotions,
observations, ideas and experience to make sense of the changes that have occurred to this landscape, while attempting to preserve its fundamental essence for the future generations. He records the changing dynamics in a historical, geological, and personal scale of time. These changes (some natural and gradual, some, accelerated by technology) have left him with a deep sense of loss. In his work, he strips out most of the landscape in order to concentrate on the movements, currents, and flow of the water. Even this small seemingly insignificant creek is an agent of change; it trickles down from the spring outside his bedroom window taking with it the sediments, soil,
stones, bones, ashes and memories.

OPEN SEPTEMBER 7TH. RECEPTION FOR ARTIST 6-8PM