“When I paint I’m feeling joy. I’m feeling what life is supposed to be like. I’m feeling free. I’m going after what it means to be a human being.” These are the words African American artist Chaz Guest spoke to me from his studio in Los Angeles on the eve of a new solo show in his home city. Joy is very much evident in Guest’s recent work, his paintings glowing with beautiful, otherworldly combinations of color and luminous emotions, even as they depict the gritty realities of warfare and the deep complexity of the Black experience. From now through 30 July, Guest is exhibiting these works and more at Los Angeles’s Night Gallery, his first solo exhibition with the venue.
Although Guest has risen to prominence, with galleries pricing his paintings over $100,000 and collectors that include the Obamas, the climb has been a long one. Guest first sold cartoons he drew as a young boy in the 1970s, and for the rest of his life he aspired to live off his own creations, eschewing gainful employment. After graduating college in 1985 with a degree in graphic design, Guest made his way to New York City before venturing to Paris in 1986, where a chance meeting with Christian Lacroix changed the course of his career. “I fancied going to Paris, so I got a one-way ticket. I wound up doing the cover of a magazine, and that magazine sent me to Christian Lacroix. I did a drawing for him, and he told me, ‘I think you should be a painter.’ I transformed into the journey of having painting become my life.”
