Artist Statement

This show captures feelings of the heat and intensity of a world rich in the color and vitality of plant life from the Big Island of Hawaii and the subtropics of Southern Mississippi. The paintings vary in terms of their qualities of abstraction versus recognizable object matter, offering poetic fragments rather than literal descriptions. Their density varies. Some works are filled with relief and air; others feel full of rhythm and chroma to the point of despair. All of my works are a kind of overcoming from chaos to seeming organization or, in some cases, disillusion.

Our world seems increasingly fraught with instability while maintaining its beauty in spite of this. I hope this show gets at what it means to try to be resilient in spite of not knowing exactly where our journey may be going.

This show was made possible through a grant by the Mississippi Arts Commission

Artist Biography
Chatham Meade Kemp has taught painting and drawing at William Carey University for over 17 years.  She received her Master’s of Fine Arts degree in painting from Indiana University in Bloomington in 2007 and her Bachelor’s of Arts degree from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2004.  From early on in life, Chatham’s life was centered around making art, traveling to museums, and interacting with arts. She is the daughter of James W. Meade who has been an art faculty member at the University of Southern Mississippi for over 40 years and Myra Meade who taught art and ceramics to high school students and elementary school students in addition to being a landscape painter.

It is her pleasure and privilege both in teaching and artistic production to give back to her native south Mississippi. Recently, Chatham was awarded an artist fellowship grant by the Mississippi Arts Commission and her paintings were also selected to be a part of the prestigious Mississippi Invitational at the Mississippi Museum of Art by guest juror Carla Hanzal. Her work was also recently featured in a National Juried Exhibition at the University of Southern Mississippi and invitational exhibitions at Southeastern Louisiana University and the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. Chatham is proud to be a member of the Hattiesburg Women’s Art Collective.

https://www.chathampaintings.com/
@chatham_kemp