by Melissa Faithful
Chad Wys is an Illinois based mixed media artist that works with historical and classic themes. Reimagining old paintings and sculptures, Wys gives these works of art a piece of his own mind. Some of them need a little color in their life, while others a yellow tape that reads CAUTION, but all of these pop makeovers give these works a fresh look.
With this experiment the artist hopes to blur the boundaries between the material and the digital. “My readymade works frequently deal with the re-contextualization of decorative art objects. By retooling the object and then re-presenting it for the viewer I intend to elaborate on the conversation that takes place between the observer and the reproduction in its “initial” state. Through the reclamation and manipulation of these objects I mean to acknowledge, to underscore, that our possessions can, and often do, manipulate us. In so many innumerable ways the bric-a-brac of our lives becomes a unit of measure of our own worth—I wish to subvert and to question this measure. I enjoy infiltrating this territory of being and I revel in pointing to the superficial and the wonderfully imperfect character traits in all of us,” he writes on his website.
