Dressed Up for the Letdown

Cheatwood’s body of works encompasses a broad range of visual ideas, stemming from still-life, abstraction and minimalism. The graffiti-like scribbles, scratches and primitive colors of Cheatwood are the controlled chaotic work of an expressionist. Beginning with bold marks, squiggles and doodles directly on the canvas, Cheatwood creates the composition over time. He works on the studio floor using the detritus that builds up as a result, intuitively embracing, repeating and then responding to both the intentional and accidental marks, that occur.

Cheatwood’s newest body of work is an exploration of nostalgia and tension. Combining different materials — found, gifted, and custom-made — he creates a patchwork backdrop of sewn fabric as the basis for his expressionist canvases. The backgrounds for his new works are comprised of found fabrics with nostalgic prints, Los Angeles fashion district finds, and old photographs printed on fabric. The photographs, given to him by his mother-in-law, were taken by his wife’s grandfather while traveling in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Cheatwood had them printed onto fabric to use as part of the stretched fabric backdrops for some of the paintings in this exhibition. On top of these patchwork canvases, Cheatwood lays down acrylic and oil paint through both intuitive and strategical gestures across the assemblages. Layered with nostalgic meaning, these works explore the tension among marks, mediums, colors, composition, and time.