Chauncey Secrist

Обо мне:

Chauncey J. Secrist is a 29 year old Utah native who is currently studying English and education. He currently works in a medical laboratory but has plans to teach high school English and creative writing. In addition to painting, Chauncey writes poetry and participates in various open-mic nights, teaches poetry writing workshops, and spends as much time as possible with his 8 year old daughter. He has exhibited his paintings at the Salt Lake Gay & Lesbian Center, Palmer's Gallery, Art Access Gallery, Contemporary Design & Art Gallery and Patrick Moore Gallery in Salt Lake City, and at the APW Gallery in New York. --- "Creating art is integral to my sense of who I am. It is an emotive process by which I am able to dissect and examine my own emotional mechanisms and my reactions to the world around me. It often lays bare truths I was unaware of until the moment of stepping back from a finished piece. In this respect, art is uncertain and unpredictable, usually taking on a life of its own as it progresses from the first brushstroke to a finished painting. I do not know in those first crucial strokes what the end product will be. Nor do I feel like I should know. Its creation is an act of discovery and the creative power of it would be diminished if the end was clear in the beginning. However, this also makes creating art a dangerous and revealing thing. It is often tempting to bury our emotions beneath false stoicism rather than confront them head on. And this difficulty in exposing those most intimate and private aspects of our selves is compounded by the fear associated with inevitably displaying this work to the rest of the world. It is perhaps in part because of this fear that my goal as an artist eventually grew into two parts. The first is the introspective self-examination described above, which occurs during the actual process of creating the work. The second part comes after, when the work is finished and ready to display. The purpose shifts from examining my own reactions to creating reactions in the viewer. To me, as the artist, it does not matter if the reaction of my audience is the same as my own. Each of us responds to various stimuli in unique ways and I have become increasingly fascinated by the diversity of interpretations of my paintings and the emotional reactions to them. In this way, the audience has become an active participant in the creation of meaning, and my own interpretations and intentions have become less relevant."