Garrett Chingery is a New York City based artist specializing in contemporary portraiture as well as decorative painting. He is a graduate of the Cooper Union, NYC with a BFA in Painting and Drawing. His decorative painting projects have been featured in many popular publications such as House and Garden, Domino, Hamptons Cottage and Garden, Country Living, The New York Times, etc.

After dedicating much of his artistic output to decorative painting and interior design related work, Chingery has recently returned to his primary passion- painting the human figure. This website is a collection of paintings made between 2003 to the present.

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

To create successful representational painting that not only reflects the aesthetic but also the social concerns of life today is a sizeable challenge and one that I undertake in my work. My portraits seek to not merely depict a likeness, but more importantly provide an internal look at the subject. The human figure has been the focus of art for many thousands of years, and regardless of all that has been done with it throughout the centuries, I believe it is still an extremely relevant topic that has an extraordinary amount of untapped visual potential.

My influences are many and span the history of art: Ancient Pompeiian wall frescoes and mosaics, Greco Roman statuary and krater vases, the incredible visions of Hieronymus Bosch, Indian miniature painting, Japanese woodblock prints, Sargent, Manet, Abstract Expressionism - just to name a few…

 I’ve experimented with many forms of representation within contemporary portraiture- straightforward realism, expressionism, collage, as well as richly layered works that integrate many abstract elements. It’s my feeling that these visual explorations are forming a strong, relevant and insightful body of work that has an important place in the movement of figurative art today.