brian chippendale

Brian Chippendale is an artist and musician living in Providence, Rhode Island.   After studying printmaking he became well known as the drummer in the music duo Lightning Bolt. As an artist Chippendale often makes books, comics and posters that reflect current political situations. Rarely participating in gallery exhibitions, Chippendale's colourful do-it-yourself aesthetic is most prevalent in city streets and on the sides of buildings in Providence where he continues to wheat paste his posters.

These posters are unique for their laboured and layered use of bright colour and consumer imagery.   Handmade in very limited editions, these works are often quickly disposed of or destroyed by sanitation authorities whose responsibility it is to remove 'unsanctioned' public notices.   As a result, Chippendale's posters and comics have accrued a reputation based on the fragments salvaged from these rich designs.

For his first solo show in the UK, Chippendale will be hanging over two hundred silk-screened graphic works in the Reg Vardy Gallery. Also on display will be a selection of his hand-printed books and comics.    The Reg Vardy Gallery has commissioned Chippendale to make a series of limited edition books that will be available during the exhibition.   Many of Chippendale's comics are silk-screened into pre-printed journals and often feature sequences told in panel progressions that favour a snake-like pattern rather than conventional left-to-right storytelling.

In 1995, Chippendale co-founded the art collective Fort Thunder. This loose knit group of six artists distributed Paper Rodeo - a newspaper of comics, initiated live shows, and coordinated wrestling matches. Profiled in design journals such as Nest , this group cobbled a creative environment renowned for its decorating as much as its artistic output.   The collective disbanded when the milling factory housing Fort Thunder was levelled by the city of Providence to make room for a parking lot.