Brad Chaffee | Lesley University, 2020

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From "The Future of the Past" Series

Brad Chaffee, UNTITLED (CHARLOTTESVILLE), Acrylic on canvas, 16" x 24"

"This flag painting is about the Charlottesville riots and the loss of our place in the world as the shining beacon of democracy and the moral leader in terms of human rights. I thought we were beyond this sort of thing and was shocked when Trump said both sides were equal on the matter even when the protesters were on one side and the White Nationals had body armor loaded with weapons, a militia, and then the man drove through the crowd and killed a woman I couldn't believe it. I thought our nation had changed. A little bit of that shining light died that day."

~ Brad Chaffee

Artist Bio

My journey as an artist has taken many turns, I started off as a photographer, morphed into a fiction writer, culminating in being accepted into Lesley University's MFA program in Creative Writing, Fiction, which I couldn't pursue for lack of funds. I began painting a few years later as art therapy initially and then as a hobby which is turning into a profession. Prior to all the art I worked in Information Technology for fifteen years, I eventually became a Systems Administrator before I got into a car accident that put me on disability. Disability is what sent me on my pursuit of art therapy and ultimately to the production of art, first in photography, then writing, then finally in abstract acrylics.