SANDY CHISM
Regarding the Incidence of Purpose: Curated by Matthew Weldon Showman
January 2 – February 8, 2014
PULL QUOTE
...my aim is not to deny the truly sublime but to suggest that there is, in fact, a real thing to simulate.
Biography
S A N D Y C H I S M | | | [b.1957 Great Bend, KS ::: d. 2013, New Orleans, LA]
SANDY CHISM was a Professor of Painting in the Newcomb Department of Art at Tulane University from 1996 - 2012. She had a BFA from University of Kansas and an MFA from University of Arizona where she studied under famed painter Robert Colescott. Chism had six solo exhibitions with the gallery since 1999 and her work has been exhibited locally, nationally and internationally. In July of 2000, a ten-year survey of her work was exhibited at the Contemporary Arts Center, entitled Sandy Chism: A Survey and included paintings as well as large scaled mixed-media installations. A catalog was published by the Contemporary Arts Center. She has received grants from the Louisiana Division of the Arts and the Pollock Krasner Foundation and been awarded residencies at the Santa Fe Art Institute and the First International Colony of Artists in Debrecen, Hungary. Her paintings are featured in the permanent collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art, Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation Collection in Los Angeles, Emprise Bank in Wichita, Kansas, and Liquitex Paints, New Jersey. Chism's work has been reviewed in Art in America, New Orleans Art Review, The Times-Picayune, Gambit Weekly, Forum Magazine and The Journal Santa Fe. She is known for her works that combine the ethereal and the concrete. Similarly, her work often incorporates imagery to describe the flux between opposites in nature such as the cycles of life and death, the single versus the multiple, the micro and the macro, stillness and frenzy and chaos versus order.
Matthew Weldon Showman describes the artists’ oeuvre …
Sandy Chism’s paintings are wrought with juxtapositions: strength/weakness, conflict/accord, natural/man-made, real/imagined, hope/despair . . . This internal struggle can be seen in all of the various bodies of work that Chism produced over her 35 year career. Presented side by side in this exhibition, these works illustrate one seamless narrative of struggle, memory and nature. The paintings consistently air poetically towards the positive. Chism created haunting yet uplifting visions to profoundly inspire the viewer.
On January 2nd, 2013, Chism died from ovarian cancer at age 55. Her spirit lives on through her work.
The Sandy Chism Estate is represented by Jonathan Ferrara Gallery.
Curriculum Vitae
EDUCATION
1993 M.F.A., University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Frederick Wiseman Collection, Los Angeles, CA
City of Debrecen, Hungary
State of Louisiana, Claiborne Collection
New Orleans Museum of Art
Murphy, Rogers and Sloss Collection, New Orleans, LA
Liquitex Paint
AWARDS AND GRANTS
2006 Artists Grant, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA
2005 Pollack Krasner Foundation Grant through the Santa Fe Art Institute
2003 Louisiana Division of the Arts, Artist Fellowship
2002 Louisiana Division of the Arts Percent for Art program, Claiborne Collection
1993 Liquitex Purchase Award
RESIDENCIES AND WORKSHOPS
2007 Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO
2006 First International Colony of Artists, Debrecen, Hungary
2004 Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO
2005 Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM
April 2005 Professionalism: Life after graduate school, Panel and Slide lecture,
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2014 Regarding the Incidence of Purpose (a memorial retrospective),
Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2012 In The Trying, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2010 Sliver, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2008 Keeping Still Moving Fast, William and Joseph Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2006 Small Wonder, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2004 Closer, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2003 In-Between, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2001 From Stillness to Frenzy, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2000 Sandy Chism: A Survey, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA (catalog)
1999 Many as One and One as Many, Birmingham Art Center, Birmingham, AL
1998 Flip SIide, Webb Hall Art Gallery, University of West Alabama, Livingston, AL
1998 Change Anchors, Carroll Gallery, Newcomb Art Department, Tulane University,
New Orleans, LA
1996 Sandy Chism, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City, MO
