Artists
United States of America
Char Schwall
#6: Future
02.06.21 30.06.21
Char Schwall is a visual artist in the areas of painting, drawing and fiber arts; she is also an arts educator with extensive experience in multidisciplinary education. Her work investigates the natural environment, principles of growth and organic systems and color as a language. Her most recent body of work addresses ideas of gender identity and the fluidity of subjectivities through body/brain connections. As an early childhood educator, Schwall has extensively studied the educational system in the municipality of Reggio-Emilia, Italy, and co-edited and co-authored the book In the Spirit of the Studio: Learning from the Atelier of Reggio Emilia. During the COVID-19 crisis, she sewed masks as a volunteer for KC Helps and The Sewing Labs in Kansas City.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Char Schwall’s creative practice is an exploration of two material languages: paint and textiles. By placing two material languages (two material bodies of knowledge) in conversation with one another, her work investigates concepts of surface, gendered space, fluidity, and overall softness. The aesthetic trajectory in the work is one of openness, growth, the expansion of organic systems and morphology. The writing of French philosopher Luce Irigaray, who explores the complex, and sometimes controversial, relationship between the feminine and the fluid, also inspires her work. Schwall’s aesthetic seeks to create places of openness, of a relation to the other; a generative place where birth and rebirth can continuously prevail. Through these visual actions, the works embody a womb-space, a gendered space that reveals multiple states of transition.
ABOUT #FUTURE
I began the #FUTURE program with questions that addressed gender implications of different media and materials: is sewing a feminine art or not? Do materials have a culturally implied gender or not? I first investigated these questions through digital collages, using imagery of fiber arts, garments and gender transformation through images and sketches of the brain. These collages envision a new body of work that addresses the mind-body aspect of transgender experience.
For my collaborative group with Beth Grabowski and Clare Thomas, we created a project that had several different stages. The project, Woman As, consisted of us each buying second-hand clothes in thrift shops, transforming the garments and then giving them away to someone or back to the shops. Processes of memory, empathy and collaboration were key ideas.
The garments that I chose to transform were connected to stories and desires from my childhood, and addressed desires from the past that were restricted due to gender normativity. The transformed garments will have a new future, as they will be owned and used by someone new. Our group also created a sewing circle to reenact Woman’s collaborative traditions as well. The sewing circle was documented through video recording. The work I have created, or co-created, as part of the #FUTURE program will inform my creative practice for years to come.
BIO
Char Schwall
1964 | Denver, Colorado, USA
Lives and works in Kansas City, Missouri, USA
EDUCATION
1991 | MFA, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
1987 | BFA, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
EXHIBITIONS
2021 | Sea Lover, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
2021 | Kansas City Flatfile & Digital Flatfile, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
2021 | Bilingual: Abstract & Figurative, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
2017 | Breaking, Splitting, Seaming, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
RESIDENCIES
2012 | The Ragdale Foundation, artist residency, Lake Forest, Illinois, USA
2010 | Vermont Studio Center, artist residency, Johnson, Vermont, USA
AWARDS
2009 | National Endowment for the Arts grant, Ranch Arts Center, Art Educator Institute residency, Snowmass, Colorado, USA
Related Activities
Encounters, Exhibitions
#6 | FUTURE: results
Artists in dialogue
14.07.21
Related artists
FUTURE VIRTUAL OPENING
July 14th, 2021
4PM GMT-3 | Argentina
Director
Alicia Candiani
General Coordinator
Andrés Knob
Curator-in-residence
Daniela Ruiz Moreno, connecting from Madrid, Spain
Guest Speaker
Joseph Scheer, connecting from Alfred, NY, USA
Assistant
Alen Iglesias
Artists
Diaa Ahmedien | Cairo, Egypt
Christopher Bradd | Toronto, Canada
Jess Carlock | Portland, OR, USA
Lindsey Clark Ryan | USA
Lucio Gorzalczany | Buenos Aires, Argentina
Beth Grabowski | Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Trisha Gupta | Burtonsville, USA
Lorena Pradal | Zárate, Argentina
Claudia Roselli | Florence, Italy
Carrie Scanga |Portland, Maine, USA
Char Schwall | Kansas City, MO, USA
Rachel Singel | Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Kelsey Stephenson | Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Clare Thomas |Victoria, BC, Canada
Gerry Trilling |Kansas City, MO, USA