Local artist Jon Chale, known by the moniker Free Rein, recently went down to Miami, Fla. where he showcased his artwork at Art Basel, a prestigious, week-long event giving renowned and up and coming artists a massive platform to show their work.
The main venue is at the Miami Beach Convention Centre, but there are pop-up galleries and satellite events such as Design Miami all over the city.
Chale’s work was shown at a new club called Little River Studios. During the first weekend of Art Basel, the venue hosted a sold-out show with DJ Tiesto, one of the most-prolific DJs of all time, headlining.
Chale’s friend Nick Malloy, owner of Slice of Life printing company, invited him down to Miami, with Chale saying this was the biggest opportunity of his art career to date.
To help fund the trip, Chale sold two canvas prints of some of his finest work. He posted on his birthday, Nov. 28, that he had them for sale, and within less than an hour both were sold. In the next two days he sold another $4,000 worth of work, totally enabling him to travel to Miami for this once-in-a-lifetime experience.
At Little River Studios, Chale was bumped up to be the featured artist, so his work was displayed prominently for guests as soon as they walked in.
His friends who invited him down curate spaces for artists at the event. He describes working at the venue from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. every day Art Basel was happening, with days for set up and tear down on either side.
Chale said his artwork was displayed in Tiesto’s green room for his performance at Little River, which he said was a surreal experience.
Chale has been making art for the past 15 years. He has worked as a resident artist at Shambhala Music Festival, as Creative Director and Designer with Wicked Woods Music Festival, contributed art to RDS Skate Supply and serves as Canadian Wholesale Director for Grassroots California.
He works with acrylics, airbrush, spray paint and digital media and recently has delved into creating sculptures with top of the line 3D printers. His work regularly features ducks, including self portraits and sculptures.
On the second day the show was happening, he and his agent Kyo drove down to South Beach, where one of the primary galleries for Art Basel was located.
“This was the secondary gallery and arguably, what Nick told me, is that’s the one to go to,” Chale said. “The main Art Basel gallery can be a little bit more temporary, a little more snooty. I wanted to see more of the urban, street and modern art, which is Scope Gallery.”
Throughout this massive pop-up instalment, Chale said there were dozens of artist galleries on display. He and his friend tried to see as much as they could before they had to be back to work.
His agent struck up a conversation with one of the people running the gallery to introduce him to Chale’s work.
John showed him the two pieces he had printed to canvas, one a modern-street art portrait of one of his friends, the other a self portrait, but in his own unique style, which features him as an anthropomorphized duck — a prominent theme in his work.
Chale gave him his business card and the curator reached out to him right away and said he’d like to look into bringing him into the gallery with the next round of new artists next year.
Another major highlight of the trip for Chale was getting to experience the Wynwood Walls Museum, described as “the world’s premier destination for outdoor street art.”
It features the work of over 100 artists from over 20 countries displayed on over 35,000 square feet of walls, drawing around three million visitors per year.
Chale said the majority of the photos he took on his phone through the whole experience were from Wynwood.
Here, he got to see work from many artists who were truly inspirational to him as an artist. He saw sculptures from sculptor Kaws, murals from calligraphy artist Kryptic and illustrator Jeremy Fish.
“I’ve idolized Kaws for a long time,” Chale said. “The reason I started doing these duck sculptures was because I wanted to do something like him. I actually had changed my artist name to ‘Effect’ — Kaws was the effect of me making these things.”
At Wynwood he also got to see work from artist and activist Shepard Fairy, better known as Obey, UK artists The London Police, American painter Buff Monster and Spanish artist Dulk, another he’s looked up to for years.
“I was in heaven, I was so giddy,” he said. “Finally got to see a Dulk piece, I was buzzing.”
While exploring the final gallery, just before it closed, he and his agent happened to meet one of the people running the gallery, discovering they had mutual friends. Again, Kyo showed them Chale’s work, and when he saw the duck mural, he asked for Chale’s card, saying he will try to get him in for next year at Art Basel.
Chale said the potential for his work to be included in next year’s Art Basel, among artists he’s idolized for years who sell their work for thousands of dollars, would be life changing.
He is currently working on carefully curating his portfolio, with the intent of being as ready as possible for next year’s intake.
Chale has a new website in the works, but in the meantime you can find his work at artof_freerein on Instagram.