steven charles nowhere fast 7 april - 8 may 2000     arise, therefore, 2000 enamel on canvas 24" x 24" sold     arise, therefore (detail + show invitation card)   Pierogi 2000 is proud to present the first one person show of Steven Charles. It's a real pleasure when have the chance to introduce an artist of Charles' talent and potential. When I went on that first studio visit, I was completely enamored of the work. Charles is a young artist doing virtuosic work. Every studio visit till this day has inspired and convinced me. Charles' work definitely lives in the world of obsessive-pattern orientation. His contemporaries would be in the line of Bruce Pearson and James Siena. The main difference being that Charles' work is developed from a more serendipitous strategy. he starts these paintings, for example, with drips and pours of enamel point or patterened contact paper attached to the canvas. He then continues to drip and pour al the while repainting his last pour or pattern, filling in color with color and leaving only the edges of the previous color showing. I know this all sounds a little complicated but.... He calls this technique targeting. So in a sense, he is always organizing and defining his last unorganized random mark until there is no more to be done. This entire process is always under some compositional guideline that only Charles can explain, so each painting is completely unique and amazing to look at. It works both on the micro and macro levels; the magical intensity of detail at a close look and the compositional integrity from a distance. This state of organized chaos lives perfectly in the context of his painting -- the immediacy of material and hands on bravado that hits you in the face when you first experience a Charles painting. When first viewing his work, most people see an almost literal translation of some street map or some sort of topographically inferred, spaced-out maniac city map. I guess the sort of thing you might experience when looking for the first time at a New York subway map after arriving from the suburbs of, say, Sacramento, CA as I did.   ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2000 nowhere fast, Pierogi 2000, Brooklyn, NY SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2000 Live From New York, Haines Gallery (curated by Kim Wauson), San Francisco, CA 1999 In Tense, Videoland Art Space (curated by Jeff Gleich), New York, NY The Flatfiles: Pierogi 2000, Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery (University of the Arts), Philadelphia, PA BIBLIOGRAPHY Bonetti, David, "Gallery Watch: Driven to dynamic abstraction," San Francisco Examiner, Jan 28, 2000 EDUCATION MFA 1996 Temple University, Rome, Italy BFA 1994 University of North Texas, Denton, TX
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	P   I   E   R   O   G   I     2   0   0   0 177 north 9th street brooklyn, ny 11211 718.599.2144 noon to 6p friday through monday and by appointment pierogi 2000 is an innovative art gallery in williamsburg, brooklyn, new york