Chambliss Giobbi - Portrait of Alice O'Malley 3, 2011

Chambliss Giobbi

BIOGRAPHY Chambliss Giobbi grew up in Katonah, New York and received a B.F.A. in Music Composition from Boston University. A recipient of Guggenheim, NEA and NYFA fellowships, Giobbi was a prolific composer of classical music before turning to visual art. He has bridged notion of time and simultaneity in the development of musical ideas to become a central developmental theme in his fractured, stop-frame images. Giobbi has exhibited in numerous museum shows, including the National Portrait Gallery, (D.C.), The Katonah Museum of Art, (Katonah, NY), The Oakland University Art Museum, (Detroit, MI), The Kohler Art Center, (Sheboygan, WI), The National Academy Museum, (NYC), The Islip Art Museum, (Islip, NY), and is in the permanent collection of the Museo De Bellas Artes in Santander, Spain. His gallery exhibitions include 101/Exhibit, (Miami), MiTO Galeria d’Arte, (Barcelona), HALLWALLS, (Buffalo), Jack The Pelican Presents, (Brooklyn), Artists Space, (NYC), and Brick Lane Gallery, (London). He was also featured in the VOLTA show in 2010. His work has been reviewed by the New York Times and has been featured in Bomb Magazine, SLEEK Magazine and FlashArt online. He lives and works in New York City. STATEMENT Chambliss Giobbi’s figurative collages work on two levels: Firstly, as objects of obsessive psychological and physical mutation, and secondly, as testaments to an intense personal courtship between artist and model. After a marathon photo session with his subject, Giobbi prints thousands of photographs. He then tears the prints and glues them, piece by piece, layer upon layer, to create the image. What follows is a series of collages on panels. Some pieces are flat, while others utilize sculpted forms to create three-dimensional surfaces: Each series embodies a reinvention of technique that conforms to how Giobbi sees the individual portrayed. Giobbi’s work is deeply psychological: portraits at once linear and composed, then abrupt and splintered. One is left with the notion of witnessing a concentrated, virtually operatic compression of moments, catharsis and myth: an intimate viewing of entropy. A recipient of Guggenheim, NEA and NYFA fellowships, Giobbi was a prolific composer of classical music for fifteen years before turning to visual art. The notion of time and simultaneity in the development of musical ideas has become a central theme in his fractured, stop-frame images.