Jamison Chas Banks

Chas’s work distinguishes itself from most of his peers through the fact that he thinks completely outside of the box. He tackles mostly political issues through his ability to tie historical events back to current issues and displays them as installations, paintings and print works in a fashion that requires the viewer to ask questions to reveal the deeper meaning behind them. His art is universal and timeless and not confined to native art venus.  He is one of those artists that you can 100% rely on if he commits to a project, and you know that you will be blown away, when you receive his submission. Therefore it is no surprise that I am already holding his interpretation of the design he picked in my hands.

“Deco 5”  by Damian Jim

Chas turned an art deco inspired Navajo basket design into a piece that tackles the issue of cultural mis-appropriation utilizing and critiquing logos of companies associated with this behavior. Curiously I followed up with the imagery and came across this design related article that beautifully fits into this blog as we are not only about baskets but also about excellence in design.

Growing up in Germany in the 70ies and 80ies, the only sport wear manufacturer that stood out was Adidas and ever since then they are my brand of choice. Here I am decades later, googling how their signature trifold logo was created after seeing it being integrated into Chas Banks piece. Come to find out that the name of the company owner was Adolf “Adi” Dassler which explains the company’s name (Duh, Katja!) and that the three leaves stand for the continents Europe, Africa and America. I feel like an old dog that just learned new tricks 😉 If you are interested to learn more about one of the development of one of the most successful brand logos in this world, here is a great blogpost :http://www.creativebloq.com/logo-design/how-adidas-logo-earned-its-stripes-11135390

Are you curious about the piece Chas created? It will be on display at the Byting Willows exhibit at 1Spot Gallery in Phoenix from 2/20-4/17/2015.

If you can’t wait until then to familiarize yourself with Chas’s art, I strongly recommend you take a look at his blog (http://chasbanks.blogspot.com)!