My paintings provide a portal, inviting the viewer into the subtleties of rhythm and movement. The composing process involves layering paint, with attention to clarity and detail, so that light enhances the colors and creates dimension. There is a strong emphasis on traditional, classical techniques so that the viewer may better appreciate the beauty, peacefulness and tranquility of the subject.

I try to appropriate (when appropriate) from artists of the past and use iconic images of the present to create a body of work that uses ideas and materials that have been discarded and ignored as useless or trivial and transform them into something that can be appreciated.

Business has usurped the very meaning of manufactured and perverted it. As taken from the two Latin words manus for hand and the verb factere for to do/make, manufactured literally means made by hand. In other words, art is all that's left in our world that is manufactured. Andy Warhol's use of the term "factory" for his center of production was a reflection of this reality. Everything else, if it were put more accurately, is machinafactured goods.

To then share these creations, I have made greeting cards and websites and, of course, a Facebook page, learning along the way that the marketing of art takes far more creativity, toil, time and expense than producing the art in the first place does. 
 
So the goal of my Open Studio participation is to share the excitement of creating and showing (and hopefully, selling) art.

Chessa Piker-Ward has a background in dance, theater and visual arts. She received her B.A. from U.C.S.C in Theater Arts. She has studied dance at the Alvin Ailey Institute, Motion Pacific and the Dance Mission Theater. She has been painting since she was twelve years old and took classes on portrait painting and figure drawing from the Art Students League of New York City. She feels that art is therapy and encourages everyone to do it as much and as often as possible.

Derek lynch was born in Englewood NJ and currently lives and works in San Francisco CA. Solo and Group exhibitions have been featured at: Schneider Museum of Art, Ashley Oregon, Bedford Gallery of Contemporary Art, Walnut Creek, CA, SFMOMA Museo gallery, San Francisco,CA, SFMOMA Artist Gallery San Francisco, CA, Gallerie Citi, CA. .

Artist Statement

My new work involves the creation of urban based Idealized landscapes in dream like circumstances. Ambiguous relationships and unsettling juxtapositions.

I am focusing and dissecting, rearranging forms derived from the architecture of the bay area to create new perspectives.

My text are idioms of my perception of reality base on the Current social political life we live.

The outcome can be whimsical and yet it offers a serious sociopolitical commentary on the changes to our urban landscape.

My perception of reality, and how I interpret it, was shaped by the implications of the housing scandals of the last decade.

I am attempting to combine these observations to create a compilation of connective awareness.

In 2006, I began working with architectural forms using ink, pencil markers, acrylic paint, and archival pigment. My use of these materials has become a prominent feature of my work..

I was fortunate to attend the School of the Visual Arts in New York City in the early 80’s with artists such as Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf.

As a musician my band played at CBGB's in 1986 & 87 at the Christmas special as the 'Special Guests' after the performance in 1987 we performed live on WFMU radio.

My film debut was at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, BAM in Berkeley, CA, and The Kitchen in New York City in 2000.

My film debut was at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, BAM in Berkeley, CA, and The Kitchen in New York City in 2000.

Making art is how I make sense of the world and my forgotten childhood. Observing my own anxieties and awkwardness I create visual narratives that examine loneliness, responsibility, and choice. In my work the innocence and vulnerability associated with children and animals is constrained. These stories unfold in the space between memory and nostalgia, and focus on the tension between youth and maturity. In the sculptures, composed of discarded stuffed animals sewn over taxidermy forms, I am observing how childhood and adulthood circle one another. The forms usually used as hunting trophies have now become the mementos of a lost childhood.

In an information-filled world as a wanna-be minimalist, am searching for essences while working with vertical movement, color, rhythm, light, layers.