Chad Fonfara
Artist Statement
The Condemnations series began with my strong reaction to a cloud of red-winged blackbirds that fell dead on the streets and parkways of suburban Arkansas. The panoramic photos presented small black masses fixed in varying degrees of bodily trauma. I saw these angular, distorted forms as bodies first and birds second. They were alive to me in a way that living birds can’t be. A bird sitting on a wire is every bird, is the idea of a bird: commonplace and bereft of significance. These dead birds took on shapes that were disarranged, each one nuanced and unique. In death, they became highly individualized and expressive. I started creating these forms for myself in the studio to understand my strong, multifaceted reaction to this imagery.
Equally influential to this series were the editorialized explanations for these mass red-winged deaths that included conspiracies, superstitions and religious divinations. With these interpretations, the facts of the event were subjugated to the personal doctrines of soothsayers and talking heads. This event and its hyperbolic rhetoric were, for me, evocative of the intentional misrepresentations that pervade the public discourse in relation to social ills, societal breakdowns, violent public acts or ecological disasters. I am interested in the negative social impact of these invented narratives and the ways in which they cause personal and collective harm: damnation, vilification, dehumanization.
The Condemnations series has unfolded both as an investigation into the communicative abilities of form and as an examination of how interpretations of societal events are tailored to buttress personal, political or religious ideologies. For me this work originates from a place of confinement, reticence, prejudice, cowardice, ironies and doublespeak. It is an attempt to describe in imagery that which is essentially ineffable.
2014 Steve Wake, private collection, Lincoln, NE
Robert H. Culver Jr. private collection, Omaha, NE
Rich and Luann Fienke, private collection, Lincoln NE
2013 Steve Wake and Linda Esterling, private collection, Lincoln, NE
2012 Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, NE
Steve Wake and Linda Esterling, private collection, Lincoln, NE
2011 Robert H. Culver Jr, Bemis Arts board of directors, private collection, Omaha, NE
2014 The Greatness of Studio Glass, Gallery 72, Omaha, NE
Museum of Nebraska Art Spirit: A Celebration of Art in the Heartland
2013 Fred Simon Gallery ·
Nebraska Arts Council Headquarters, Omaha, NE
Regional juried artist selection
37th Annual Smoky Hill Art Competition & Exhibition
Artist In Action Installation, Salina, KS,
2012 Botanical Exhibition
Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH (international juried) catalogue
Cases and Remains ·
Walker Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Kearney, NE
Menagerie, Sculpture Garden Gallery ·
Museum of Nebraska Art Kearney, NE,
Curator: Teliza Rodriguez
2012 10th Annual Blanche Ames National Juried Exhibit
North Easton, MA, (national) catalogue
honorable mention
Kansas Artist and Craftsman Material Mastery Exhibition
Sabatini Gallery Topeka, KS,
Juror: Sherry Leedy (regional)
second place
2012 Will’s Creek Survey Exhibition
Cumberland, MD (national) catalogue
Juror: Jay Fisher
first place award
Pilchuck Glass School 34th Annual Gala Auction
Seattle, WA, international juried selection, catalogue
2011 Nebraska Now, Chad Fonfara, Glass ·
Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, NE,
Curator: Teliza Rodriguez
35th Annual Smoky Hill Art Competition & Exhibition
Artist In Action Installation, Salina, KS,
Juror: Don Osborn (national) catalogue
Juror’s first choice
Kansas Artist and Craftsman Material Mastery Exhibition
Norman R. Eppink Gallery, Emporia, KS
Juror: Elaine Henry
Kansas Artist and Craftsman Members Exhibition
Emporia Arts Council, Emporia, KS (invitational)
2009 Kansas Artists and Craftsman-Members Exhibition
Moss-Thorn Gallery, Ft Hays, KS (invitational)
Kansas Artists and Craftsman Material Mastery Exhibition
Moss-Thorn Gallery, Ft. Hays, KS,
Jurors: Glen R. Brown, Linda Ganstrom
Academia Invitational
Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, NE
Curator: Teliza Rodriguez catalogue
2007 UNK Art Faculty Exhibition
Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney , NE(group show)
Abstraction: The Language of Art
Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Manhattan, KS (group show)