Chad Cole is a painter inspired by the Southern landscape. He has spent nearly two decades traveling the back roads of the Southeast and painting the rural areas of Appalachia, the Piedmont, and the Low Country. His painting styles and methods have slowly evolved over time, but the exploration of place identity in his work has remained ongoing. Chad is drawn to landscapes with abandoned agrarian architecture, unique roadside oddities, historical battlefields, and the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains.
Chad’s paintings capture a sense of place while exploring memories, stories, and cultures of the South. The artist is interested in the interplay of light and shadow both in the landscape and on the canvas, and he uses tonality to exaggerate and imbue the work with atmosphere and emotion. Paintings are created using a palette of traditional pigments and earth tones, and the artist alternates mediums of oils and waxes to render and layer the colors and achieve a harmony between the tones and textures in the works.