Chad Cortez Everett: "Echoes in Matter"
Center for Emerging Artists
237 S. 18th St.
Philadelphia
Seen Feb. 26
Showing through March 14
Who is Chad Cortez Everett?
A Star Trek fanatic. An Uno aficionado. An idealist. A product of the '80s. A Philadelphian.
He’s also one of three local artists whose work is on display at the Center for Emerging Artists' latest show, “Echoes in Matter,” which seeks to explore how “memory is not static” but “alive, mutable and embedded in the physical fabric of our lives.”
Through autobiographical collages of old photos, train tickets, television sets, vintage advertisements and big brand snack foods, Everett recounts the texture of his past through the open eyes of childhood. The exhibit’s other artworks deal largely with the erasure of memory through highly conceptual pieces — like photographs of subjects with their eyes removed or landscapes poking out from a quicksand canvas of asphalt. By contrast, Everett uses the youthful technique of organized patchwork to celebrate the sustaining power of recall and reflection.
Everett’s bold and downright fun collages of ephemera collected from a late 20th century childhood in Philly are a relief to see amid the landscape of hyper-serious, melancholy examinations of our individual and inevitable mental deterioration. Instead of mourning the holes of his own memory, he has designed a series of assemblages that provoke and preserve collective remembrance of time and place.
We learn a little bit about who Everett is through the lens of how he was raised: Around the lure of Air Jordans, the glory of sci-fi television, the old-fashioned modernity of an air-conditioned roller rink, the artificial satisfaction of mass-produced white flour confections. He reiterates the 1980s campaigning sensibility of buoyant materialism by crafting simple collections of color, such as spectral red and pink pasting of train passes or the primary shades of yellow and blue manufactured in Uno Cards. Every image is stamped with an endearingly nerdy photo of Everett as a kid basking in the green-glowing nostalgia of advertising realized.
Everett offers personal anecdotes through adjacent journal entries about how these products, in turn, were colored with character by their consumers: “Originally introduced in the 1980s, UNO provided a welcome relief from the humid Philadelphia summers. We often gathered on the steps of my house, where we created our own variations of the game to keep things exciting. For example, forgetting to call 'UNO' resulted in drawing two cards, adding suspense and strategy to our matches.” That background contextualizes his 2023 collage, “Ghetto Uno and cupcakes.”
As children, we are especially vulnerable to the advent of gratification and entertainment, but likely out of touch with the underlying themes and forces that provide us with these goods. By retroactively reproducing the trickle-down optimism of the time, Everett gets the chance to intellectually insert how mainstream culture simultaneously sidetracked his spirit: “My work draws inspiration from the iconic symbols and cultural artifacts of the 1980s. As a child, exposure to these diverse images profoundly shaped my worldview, both positively and negatively. Influenced by television portrayals, I became enamored with the allure of wealth and power, believing they epitomized success across all cultures. The media showcased individuals with high salaries, opulent homes, and luxurious cars, reinforcing the association between wealth, power and influence.”
We cannot control the diets of our childhood nor foresee as kids the ensuing hunger our upbringings will ultimately inspire. But as humans, we’re way more than receptacles. Everett takes control over his past by taking ownership of the items thrown our way by corporate chains — the Hostess Cake stands in for the sense of communal joy that neighborhoods can construct beyond and through the edible trinkets touted at Supermarkets. He doesn’t labor, at least visually, over the self-declared negative beliefs imposed upon him by the outside culture.
Through his biography, I learned that Everett is a middle school art teacher. Through his art, we understand more nuanced elements of who he is: We see his style, his belief in beauty, the root of his goofy obsessions.
There’s a unique sense of generosity at the forefront of Everett’s work. There’s no attempt to separate the art from the artist here. We’re invited to get to know him, and to be curious about a stranger — maybe in part because his collages remind us that he is also our neighbor in this city, maybe because a sense of familiarity is stricken through his representations of cultural touchstones of TV shows and sugary snacks.
Despite having processed the complex influence of media, entertainment and capital, Everett hasn’t divorced himself from all the good that filled his childhood. Everett chooses to remember the past kindly; the optimism of the time seeps through to the apocalyptic 2020s through the artist’s hand as he asserts the chubby strokes of a marker or the fine stenciling of ornate flowers to fill up and personalize his pages of artifacts.
Everett’s illustrations of shoes, in particular, look as though they were drawn with glue — check out his depictions of sneakers and roller skates. Everett understands himself as another product of the time, allowing the loaded personality of the era to radiate through the true sensitivity of his memory. Everett is the glue that glorifies and embraces the fun of life, even when it feels hard or hollow.
