Chipper Thompson at Gerald Peters

LONGTIME TAOS RESIDENT Chipper Thompson wears many hats, and plays with several bands, but he’s also a visual artist who happens to have an upcoming show at the esteemed Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe. It’s been awhile since Tempo talked to Thompson, so we decided to check in and discover more about the show, the art, and of course, the music.

You are primarily known in these parts as a musician, but you are also a visual artist who has an upcoming show at the esteemed Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe. Please tell us a little about the show.

“Aloft & Beneath” is my second oneman show at Gerald Peters Gallery,my first being “Documents” in August of 2012. I proposed this show to the gallery about 18 months - 2 years ago, when I realized I was formulating a “vision” for a body of work that might go together nicelyas a show. Funny, several of the pieces I thought I would do for thisshow never materialized! But there were others that showed up in mypsyche that took their place and everything worked out just fine. “Aloft & Beneath” emphasizes the liminal space between earth and air, between soil and vapor, between lithosphere and atmosphere, between ground and sky, between wave and spray. There is an entire world in the canopy ofthe sky; likewise in the caverns under our crops, under the waters of the world. The circles of life are exemplified in this art by focus on flower and stone, plant and animal, salt water and salt air, root and branch, rain and bone.

What inspires you as a visual artist?

Most of all, I’m inspired by nature. The shapes of trees, weird rock formations, interesting animals and their behavior, are all far-and-away the most important influence on what I’m doing artistically. I’m fascinated by the invisible beneath our feet and above our heads andunder dark waters. Regardless of the certainty of our scientific knowledge about biology, I tend to interact in an emotional and almost folkloric way to the mysteries of the natural world, from rain to soil to pollen to mycelium to plant to leaf and fruit. Then, of course,there’s the animals that eat the plants — and each other. All this relates to scientific naturalism, especially the early 18th and 19th century attempts at taxonomy, but I relate to it all in an almost iconic way. These plants and creatures are my angels and demons, my gods and monsters. Secondly, I’m inspired by other art and artists, but that’s a distant second for me.

Your current work is an intriguing fusion of styles — ranging from illustrative to illuminative! Please tell us how you developed stylistically.

I developed stylistically by being around my father, who was a professional artist, as well as an amateur musician and deep appreciator of literature. He was a brilliant pen-andink man, as well as a fair watercolorist, and I loved watching him work, and still own quite a few of his pieces. I was always sketching and doodling sciencefiction-themed drawings as a kid, and comic books were huge for me. My dad also taught me about some of the great illustrators: Howard Pyle and NC. Wyeth, Arthur Rackham and Frank Frazetta. As a young adult, I turned into a huge fan of graphic art, particularly posters advertising ... well, basically anything, from the art-nouveau ads of Alphonse Mucha to the psychedelic San Francisco rock concert posters. I also went to more fine art museums, and fell in love with art from the medieval period, which might account for that obvious “illuminated manuscript” influence on my work.

How does your music influence your artwork?

My music, and music in general, hardly has any effect on influencing my visual artwork, other than obliquely because I do listen to music while I draw and paint, and I suppose it might have some effect on my mood. More directly, I might say I learned how to be a draftsman by hand-drawing almost 250 posters for my musical gigs over the years.

What’s next on your never-ending agenda?

My agenda does seem to be neverending these days! Doing this showhas taken about 18 months of on-and-off (mostly “ON!”) work, but I’m also working on hand-illustrating and painting a comic book, not tomention a few art pieces I owe friends and family as “thank yous.” Then, in the non-visual art world there’s a novel and a bunch of short storiesI’m trying to finish, as well as the mixing and mastering of a newalbum’s worth of folk music that’s fully recorded (it has been for ayear!) but not yet ready for release.