Charles Stewart
suchuwato68@gmail.com
(510)652-0970
Solo Exhibitions
1986 NHK Gallery, Utsunomiya, Japan
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 Blue Line Arts, “Off Center,” Roseville, California
2023 San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild Spring Online Exhibition
2022 Blue Line Arts, “Crocker Kingsley National Art Competition,” Roseville, California
2022 Sanchez Art Center, “Left Coast Annual,” Juror’s Award of Merit, Pacifica , California
2021 Arts Benicia, “That Which Surrounds You”, Juried Exhibition, Benicia, California
2020 Epperson Gallery of Ceramic Art, National Clay Competition, Crockett, California
2020 de Young Museum, “de Young Open”, San Francisco, California
2020 Pence Gallery, “Slice”, Juried Exhibition, 3rd place, Davis, California
1992 Southern Exposure, San Francisco, California
1986 NHK Gallery, Utsunomiya-shi, Tochigi-ken, Japan
1985 AT Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1982 Open Studios, San Francisco, California
1981 Jetwave, San Francisco, California
1976 University of California, Davis, California
Selected Private Collections
Angela Mongird, Seattle, Washington
Alan Porter, San Francisco, California
Elizabeth Easton, Oakland, California
Gene Agress, Berkeley, California
Tom Umeda, Berkeley, California
Scott Forsman, Half Moon Bay, California
David Van Sickle, New York, New York
J.T. Krueger, New York, New York
Craig Coleman, New York, New York
Larry Jones, Houston, Texas
Shira Sternberg, Bennington, Vermont
Tadaaki Masagata, Ujiie, Japan
Eiko Kashijuku, Utsunomiya, Japan
Theater
1987 The Lamplighters, San Francisco, California, Set design and fabrication
1983 One Act Theater, San Francisco, California, Set design and fabrication
Bibliography
“2022 Emerging Artists,” Ceramics Monthly, May 2022
1986 “Two Artists”, Tochigi Shinbun, Utsunomiya, Japan
Tantalizingly Almost Award
1983 Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Runner-up
May 2021
The human body and all other life forms have incredible beauty. Life in the time of COVID has demonstrated how the smallest of simple things can exert immense, remorseless power, even destruction, over the more sophisticated lives of humans. I have witnessed my wife’s family and friends decimated by cancer. The beauty of the human body transformed into physical wreckage.
I want to incorporate the forms/shapes of humans, animals, cellular life and inanimate objects into my sculptures. COVID and cancer have propelled me into creating shapes that are in the process of being changed; one thing becoming a different yet related thing, invoking interest, beauty and even the sinister.
April 2021
There is not anything in the environment and human life that does not change. These transformations in existence and physical materials are caused by evolution and growth and conversely by age and decay. I am interested in the forms of human and animal physiognomy as well as the natural elements that are one thing in one moment but slowly becoming something else in subsequent moments. The forms continue to be related during the process of becoming different, whether by chance or repurposing. There are currently two directions in which I explore the relationships between and among forms and shapes. One exploration is inspired by the organic structures of humans, animals and plants. Whether at a cellular level or the peak moment of maturation, I seek to create objects that examine the phenomena of slow or sudden changes and struggles that an evolutionary power can force. The transitions in form should be directed by an internal logic which often tempts balance and gravity, adding an air of instability and uncertainty. (See “High and Tight” and “This Then That”.)
Another interest driving the making of objects is the study of historical ruins. Alois Riegl and Susan Stewart are two historians who write about this interest. Riegl has posited that a work has two values: “historical” and “age”. (1) According to Riegl, “age value” (2) has the ability to describe the passage of time through erosion, staining and fragmentation which makes possible the appreciation of the organic emergence and deterioration of artwork.(3) Stewart calls her study of ruins “human techne”.(4) Robyn Creswell states that Stewart examines how artists “shape matter into meaningful forms and how those forms- even or especially as they fall apart - provide the matter for further acts of fabrication.”(5) In my sculpture “Wedged”, I constructed fragments that when joined created a new form suggesting an aperture or portal, yet the segments comprising the portal retain their own individual interest. If these pieces were scattered on the ground the meaning would be completely different. Other planned works will cover these ideas, often with a component of challenging balance and gravity. (See drawing, “Parlous Arch”.)
As these two directions in object making are related even though the appearances differ, only one motive drives the work; the desire to make sculpture that is thoughtful, interesting and a pleasure to behold.
(1) Robyn Creswell: “Making and Unmaking”, New York Review of Books, July 2, 2020
(2) Ibid
(3) Ibid
(4) Ibid
(5) Ibid