HONOLULU, HI.- The Contemporary Museum presents the first solo museum exhibition of the drawings of New York artist Geoffrey Chadsey. Organized by TCM Associate Director/Chief Curator James Jensen, the exhibition is a survey of Chadsey’s exotic figurative works, which straddle the natural and surreal, commenting on the hybrid nature of contemporary culture. Boys in the Band: Geoffrey Chadsey Drawings 1998-2006, on exhibit through March 18, 2007.

Geoffrey Chadsey appropriates images from art history textbooks, magazines, the Internet, and snapshots of family and friends. Carefully selecting disparate elements, Chadsey combines them into seamless constructions that seem “real” but are in fact cleverly devised fictions. Drawing with watercolor pencil on vellum and Mylar, he puts recognizable faces–from George Washington to the rapper Juvenile–on figures in scenes of building sexual tension. The Drawings are powerfully disconcerting and humorous. Chadsey describes his works as, “Hip-hop meets Google meets family album meets Internet chat-room.” His works are off-puttingly familiar; yet circumvent an identifiable personal narrative.