THE GONZO MONUMENT
On August 20th, 2005, the Gonzo canon, built by Johnny Depp in honor of his dear friend the late great Hunter S. Thompson, projected the famous authors ashes 1200 feet into the air where they rained down on a close group of Hunter’s friends, family, and his home of Woody Creek. The Gonzo Monument was built to Hunter’s explicit funeral wishes, which he detailed to Ralph Steadman in 1978. All said and done, the entire monument stood 153ft and was two feet taller than the Statue of Liberty. Very few people were allowed to photograph on the property of Owl Farm during Hunter S. Thompson’s very private funeral in August of 2005. These photograph were taken by the artist, Chloe Sells, on Owl Farm on the 20th and 28th of August, with the permission of Hunter’s wife Anita Thompson.
The photographs of the monument were taken with a 4x5 camera, allowing for beautiful resolution when printed to large sizes. The photographs are C – prints, made by a master printer using archival methods. Because of the use of a 4x5 camera, these are the only photographs of the monument that exist in such high quality.
Each print is authenticated with complete details of the event, date, time of printing and hand-signed by the artist. The photographs are sold according to the size of the print.
Chloe Sells is a professional photographer who graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in photography. She worked for Hunter S. Thompson for two years preceding his death and was born and raised in the Aspen Valley.
Chloe Sells was born in Aspen, Colorado in 1976. From the beginning of her life, she traveled extensively throughout the world. She began photographing in 1993. Since then she has lived and worked in Nepal, Italy, Thailand and Botswana. Chloe photographs people, vistas, cultural signage and landscapes, which become visual fragments of the way that people live. Her photographs create still narratives that chronicle her personal journeys and develop cultural dialogues. Through fragmentation in composition and irregular juxta-positions, her stories become unique to her experiences in the places that she travels.
Chloe attended the Rhode Island School of Design, from which she graduated in 2000 and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography with honors. For two years thereafter, she worked at Anderson Ranch in Aspen, Colorado with Terri Weifenbach, John Gossage, Donald Sultan and Ann Lauterbach. She was personal assistant to Hunter S. Thompson for two years preceding his death. Chloe currently lives between Los Angeles and Maun, Botswana where she is working on a photographic body of work on Botswana beauty pageants.
chloesells@hotmail.com
