Page 40 - The NOISE November 2015

THE END IS NIGH
Dean Chetwynd’s art is one of the hidden gems located on Main Street, Cottonwood.
STORY BY TROY FARAH
ARTIST DEAN CHETWYND’S APOCALYPTIC VISIONS
Painting was one of the few things Dean Chetwynd’s parents couldn’t beat out of him, he tells me. My friends and I had just happened to be wandering around the streets of Cottonwood, Arizona (population: 11,000), when we happened upon Mr. Chetwynd’s back alley art gallery just off Main Street.
At once unsettling and immersive, Mr. Chetwynd’s strange style is a bizarre blend of Frank Frazetta with Hieronymus Bosch via an InfoWars nightmare. Using craft store fabric paints, he creates intricate, grotesque scenes depicting conspiracy theories, apocalyptic doomsday scenarios, and current events. Nothing, not even the Statue of Liberty wearing a gas mask or horses breathing fire or the word ‘Messiah’ in Metallica font, is too strange for Mr. Chetwynd.
“What I do is, I call it collective imaging,” the artist tells me. “I take images from magazines, papers and headlines and they just form this tapestry of what I call apocalyptic artwork.”
Mr. Chetwynd goes on to say his art is a reflection of spiritual warfare in the world. He says he started seeing patterns in history after the Branch Davidian compound was burned to the ground in Waco, Texas in 1993. So what patterns was he seeing?
“Just the gradual enslavement of mankind, not only to materialism, but to technology,” Mr. Chetwynd says. “I saw the advancement of a power elite that was controlling more of global affairs than national affairs. So I started putting the pieces together.
“Some people call it Illuminati conspiracy, the Bible calls it Ephesians 6:12. It says, ‘Our war is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and wicked spirits in high places.’ So this is spiritual warfare and my work just brings out the fleshly part of that,” the artist says.
While Mr. Chetwynd’s worldview is, to say the least, unconventional, there’s little doubt that he’s a talent that pays closer attention to global headlines than most. Whether or not one can find accord with his outlandish beliefs, his intricate technique and unique perspective are arresting. Stylistically, it falls somewhere between ‘80s black light posters and covers for thrash metal bands with a level of detail on par with the cartoonish Christy Karacas.
“Frank Frazetta was one of my favorites,” Mr. Chetwynd says. “Boris Vallejo, all that cool Molly Hatchet-looking warriors,
Conan comic books.”
His influences certainly bleed through. There’s the fiery
skull of Lucifer emerging from a mushroom cloud painted on a surfboard, aptly titled Surfin’ With The Lord or the angels of death spraying gasoline on a flaming stack of Benjamins or the seven-headed beast with the Eye of Providence from the dollar bill. On another, a woman (who suspiciously resembles Britney Spears performing “I’m a Slave 4 U,” complete with Burmese Python) dances on the One Ring from The Lord of the Rings in a field scattered with skulls and religious icons.
And, I’m told, this is just the tip of the iceberg and there are stacks more of these kinds of paintings in the house, which Mr.
Chetwynd takes me inside to see. Every room in the house — from the bathroom to the kitchen and every hallway in- between — is cluttered with dusty, layered paintings. I’m also told they all glow in the dark and at night, the house
completely lights up.
Noticing a girl clipped from a porn magazine with an
American flag dress painted over her naughty bits, skewered atop the United States Capitol above a copy of The Da Vinci Code, I ask if she represents the Whore of Babylon, something I remember from Sunday School.
“She’s the Whore of America,” Mr. Chetwynd laughs, wheezing. “Go ahead, we’ll sell ourselves real cheap. It’ll only cost blood.”
Mr. Chetwynd tells me he was born in England, was raised in California, but hardly stayed in one place for long, having hitchhiked around America for more than twelve years, making more than eight laps around the nation.
“If things were really sucking where I was at, I would just stick out my thumb,” Mr. Chetwynd recalls. “It was a fun ride, and I got to be whoever I wanted to be with whoever picked me up. I was a storyteller, an entertainer, helped people stay awake, would get odd jobs here and there ... God gave us a thumb for a reason — that’s to adventure.”
Finally, Mr. Chetwynd settled in the town of Cottonwood, a sleepy province in the high deserts of Yavapai County. He grins when he says this is a great town for him, as he hasn’t talked to a police officer in fourteen years. While the artist misses life on the road, he says now he has people coming to him. He’s only too happy to be able to open his doors to strangers, even if at one point, he had thirteen people under his roof.
“When you open your world to whoever’s gonna walk through your gate, you never know what you’re going to get,” Mr. Chetwynd advises. “My wife constantly tells me, ‘You know,youbecarefulwhatkindofstraysyoubringhome,’but
... this is a safe place. How many people can say they have a safe place where they can be who they want to be? Smile and cry and purge their poisons. Hopefully, it’s a healing place.”
After he hurt his back, selling these paintings to passersby on Main Street became Mr. Chetwynd’s full-time gig. In the past, Mr. Chetwynd has had jobs airbrushing fantasy scenes on the sides of passenger vans, designed t-shirts in California, and also worked as a tattoo artist. He says drawing is what helped him survive during his times in prison, and now his artwork helps bring him out of his chronic pain.
“Sometimes I ask myself, ‘Why’d my back get all messed up?’ I think it’s an opportunity for me to just sit still and do this stuff,” Mr. Chetwynd explains. “I could wallow in it and do drugs and escape from my pain, but it keeps me in the moment, keeps me focused, it’s a form of therapy.”
Mr. Chetwynd doesn’t just limit himself to canvas. He’s etched guns, guitars, even a girl’s a$$ once during a period
when he was a tattoo artist. He is quick to laugh while he chain smokes on his front porch, explaining that he gets his inspiration from headlines and images in newspapers. He does not have a computer or access to the internet, which he seems to prefer.
“It kinda makes sense after a while when everybody’s in confusion,” Mr. Chetwynd explains. “They’ll be asking all kinds of questions [like] ‘What’s going on man? How come you’re not freaking out?’
Mr. Chetwynd has run into many people who are uncomfortable around his style of art. It’s more than a little controversial seeing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with familiar faces.
“Some of [my art] makes people think, which is a dangerous job nowadays, causing people to think,” Mr. Chetwynd explains. “I’ve had guys come in, they comment on my artwork and say,‘Well, I didn’t come in here to get all bummed out.’ I said, ‘You’re only focusing on what you wanna see.’ I’d rather expose works of darkness than be ignorant of them.”
Regarding the future of humanity, Mr. Chetwynd says he hopes he’s wrong, but encourages others to do their homework.
“Study everything you can get your ol’ hands on and trust the Bible will lead you into the truth,” Mr. Chetwynd says. “As long as there’s breath, there’s hope.”
Despite being paranoid of world government, Mr. Chetwynd is fine telling me all of his theories and personal history — “My life is an open book,” he says — but mentions the last time a story was published on him, he discovered he had a long lost daughter.
A little online digging reveals Mr. Chetwynd is telling the truth. The man doesn’t have much of an internet presence as it is, but one of the few things that turns up is a blog form 2009 about the artist. In the comments, someone posting as “Jaime” describes a “father ... which I have never met. His name was Dean Richard Chetwynd. This photo may possibly be of him.”
“Every time I go on the internet, man, I get, ‘Are you my dad?’” Mr. Chetwynd laughs. “Sure, why not, man?”
Mr. Chetwynd’s own relationship with his father was not pretty. His parents were raised during the war, and rained abuses — both physical and verbal — on the young artist.
“My dad had a problem with rage. I grew up with mantras [like], ‘You’re stupid, you’ll never amount to anything, I should have killed you when you were born,’” Mr. Chetwynd recalls.
“My dad was into math, and I struggled with math, so I had to take homework back to the teacher with bloodstains on it from him bouncing my nose off the table.”
But Mr. Chetwynd is quick to add, “I learned how to forgive it in the years. I think it was part of my destiny to have that experience.” 928/634-0087
| Troy Farah uncovers artistic gems.
arts@thenoise.us
thethe
4204 • nSEoPvTeEmMbBeErR22001155•• NNOOISISEEaratsrts&&nenwewss••ththeennooisisee.u.uss