Chet Glaze

Thick Slick (2019), Scuzzy Drip (2019), VW Driveway (2020), Tramp Camp (2019)

Reflections
Consumerism, greed, paranoia and fear are really not new in the pandemic climate. It is, however, more prominent than I can recall it ever having been. While I have been looking at survivalism and escapism as a theme in my work for years, it looks very different now. Survivalists are merely cosplayers with wooden guns and carefully curated militant costumes. The line between hopeless geek and hardcore militia member is suddenly blurred to the point that they are indistinguishable from one another. It seems clear that if Penelope Spheeris was to remake The Decline of Western Civilization today, she would have to focus on this moment right now.

Artist Statement
I am interested in poltergeists. Not as they are described in film, but rather as they are described in science: a psychic projection of emotion onto an object or environment. Here, projections of memory, experience, emotion and desire collapse and manifest itself as sagging stains and artifacts embedded into a surface. These recalled surfaces play with themes of landscape, escapism, survivalism (prepping) and tramping.

Chet Glaze
VW Driveway, 2020. Scuzzy Drip, 2019. Thick Slick, 2019. Tramp Camp, 2019

Chet Glaze
VW Driveway, 2020

Chet Glaze
Scuzzy Drip, 2019

Chet Glaze
Thick Slick, 2019

Chet Glaze
Tramp Camp, 2019

Biography
Chet Glaze was born in 1976 in Fontana CA. After five years as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EOD) in the US Army, he attended college at CSU San Bernardino (2004) and later received his MFA from UC Santa Barbara in 2006. He is a member of the Los Angeles art collective Boys of Summer (BO$) and has had exhibitions at Patrick Painter Inc, Cerritos College, Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman, Moma PS1, UCR Sweeney Gallery. Glaze is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Mt. San Jacinto College.