CHARLES KANWISCHER

Born Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Lives and works in Waterville, Ohio

EDUCTATION

1989        M.F.A. Yale University School of Art, Painting/Printmaking

1985        B.F.A. University of Iowa, Printmaking

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2011        Southern Vermont Art Center, Manchester, VT

                Miller/Block Gallery, Boston, MA

2010        SHAHEEN modern and contemporary art, Cleveland, OH

2009        Dublin Arts Council, Dublin, OH

2007        Miller/Block Gallery, Boston, MA

2005        raw and co. Gallery, Cleveland, OH

2001        Miller/Block Gallery, Boston, MA

                Bluffton College, Bluffton OH

1999        Miller/Block Gallery, Boston, MA

1998        Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH

1997        Miller/Block Gallery, Boston, MA

1995        Bromfield Gallery, Boston, MA

1994        Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT

                Hampshire College, Amherst, MA

1993        Bromfield Gallery, Boston, MA

1992        Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

1991        College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2010       Small Worlds, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH

               Summer Show, Foxy Production, New York, NY

               Burb, An Exhibition Exploring Zones of Living, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH

               The Contemporary Landscape, Washington Art Association, Washington Depot, CT

               Charles Kanwischer and Elaine Wilson, Macomb College Art Gallery, Macomb College, Monroe      Center, MI

               Drawing Discourse, A Contemporary Drawing Exhibition, University of North Carolina-Asheville, Asheville, NC

2009       Selections from the 4^th Annual International Drawing Annual, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH

               National Juried Exhibition, Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and

               Sciences, Loveladies, NJ

               National Small Works Exhibition, Harper College Art Gallery, Palatine, IL

2008       Gray Matter, Miller Block Gallery, Boston, MA

               Unfolding Landscape - Elaine Wilson and Charles Kanwischer, Gelbke Fine Arts Center Gallery, Hiram College. Hiram, OH

2007        Cities and Suburbs, Life in a Metropolitan World, Ross Art Museum, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH

2006       Kanwischer x 2, Edmond Kanwischer and Charles Kanwischer, raw and co. Gallery, Cleveland, OH

               Small Treasures, Center of the Earth Gallery, Charlotte, NC

2005       New Master Drawings, Akron Museum of Art, Akron, OH

               House and Home, Center of the Earth Gallery, Charlotte, NC

               On/ Of Paper, Center for the Arts, Mobile, AL

2004       Small Monuments, Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH

               Toledo/Toyohashi. Toyohashi Museum of Art, Toyohashi, Japan

2003       Visions and Revisions, A Survey of Art on Paper Since 1960, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA

               Mediated Nature, Oberlin College Gallery and Performance Space at HERE HERE. Cleveland, OH

               22^st Biennial Art Exhibition, South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, IN

               Rethinking the Contemporary Landscape, Pennsylvania School of Art and Design, Lancaster, PA

2002       2^nd Annual American Landscapes National Exhibition, Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, MD

               25^th Annual Art on Paper - A National Juried Exhibition. Maryland Federation of Art Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD

              American Rivers. A National Juried Competition, Sponsored by the Great River Arts Institute, Walpole, NH. Brattleboro

              Museum of Art, Brattleboro, VT.  T.W. Wood Museum of Art, Montpelier, VT Sept 2002, Florence Griswold Museum, Lyme, CT

              April 2003

2001       Philadelphia Watercolor Society's101st Exhibition of Works on Paper, Gregg Gallery at the American College, Bryn Mawr, PA

               Works on Paper, A National Biennial Exhibition, Kirkland Fine Arts Center at Millikin University, Decatur IL

               Texas National 2001, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX

               6^th Annual International Juried Exhibition, New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts, Summit, NJ

2000       Edmond Kanwischer and Charles Kanwischer, Two Generations in Art,  College of Lake County Gallery of Art, Grayslake, IL

               Paper Routes 2000, Southern Ohio Museum of Art, Portsmouth, OH February 2000. College of Wooster Art Museum,

               Wooster, OH August 2000. Kenyon College Museum of Art, Gambier, OH December 2000. Riffe Gallery, Columbus, OH

               July 2000

1999       12th Annual Drawing Exhibition, College of Notre Dame of Maryland, Baltimore, MD

               IX Annual Valdosta National Works on Paper Exhibition, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA

               St. John's University Fifth Annual National Exhibition,  New York, NY

1997      Object Lessons, Loomis Chafee Art Gallery at the Loomis Chafee School, Wallingford, CT

1996      American Academy Invitational Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY

              Bromfield Gallery Meets the Providence Art Cell, Attleboro Museum of Art, Attleboro, MA

1994      Five Artists at Amherst College, Studio Art Faculty Exhibition, Amherst College Amherst, MA

1993       Searching for the Oxbow, Northampton Center for the Arts, Northampton, MA

HONORS AND DISTINCTIONS

2008       Bowling Green State University Institute for the Study of Culture and Society Fellowship, 2008

2007       Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award

2006       Finalist, Celebration of Creativity -Twenty-Five Years of Ohio Arts Council Award Winners

2004       Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award

2001       Nomination for a Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Grant

               Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award

1999       Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award

1987       Phelps Berdan Award for Excellence in Painting/Printmaking, Yale

               University School of Art

COLLECTIONS

Museum of Fine Arts. Boston, MA

Smith College Museum of Art. Northampton, MA

Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven, CT

Akron Museum of Art, Akron, OH

South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, IN

Dublin Arts Center, Dublin, OH

Fidelity Investments. Boston, MA

Ann and Albert Albano, Cleveland, OH

Laurence and Susan Channing, Cleveland, OH

ARTICLES AND REVIEWS

Drawings Cast Housing in New Light, Columbus Dispatch, Kaizaad Kotwal, January 11, 2009

Trompe l'oeil Realism to Absurdist Imagery, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Steven Litt, January 20, 2008.

Recognize It? Think Again, Boston Globe, Cate McQuaid, April 5, 2007

Things Counter, Spare, and Strange, Cleveland Free-Times, Douglas Max Utter, June 21, 2006

Kanwischer x 2, Cleveland Scene, Zachary Lewis, June 12, 2006

New Master Drawings, exhibition catalog, Text by Katherine Watt, Published by the Akron Museum of Art, Akron, OH

New View, MOCA Delivers a Tasty Menu of 'Small Monuments,' Cleveland Plain Dealer, Amy Bracken Sparks, April 2, 2004

Mediated Nature, exhibition catalog, Oberlin College Art Gallery and Performance Space. Cleveland, OH

The American River, A National Exhibition, exhibition catalog, essay by Robert Hass, Published by the Great River Arts Institute, Walpole, NH, 2002

Paper Offers Broad Variety, Columbus Dispatch, Jacqueline Hall, August 26, 2001

Two Generations of Kanwischer, Deanna Isaacs, Chicago Reader, September 22, 2000

Paper Routes 2000, Dialogue Magazine, Cate O'Hara , May/June 2000

Paper Routes 2000, exhibition catalog, Kay Koeninger, published jointly by the Southern Ohio Museum and the Ohio Arts Council, 2000

Review, Boston Globe, Cate McQaid, April 4, 1999

Exhibition Essay, Christopher Benfey, March 1999

Aspects of Realism, Dialogue Magazine, Molly Youngkin, May/June 1998

Review, Boston Globe, Cate McQaid, critic, June 18, 1997

Best and Brightest of 1991, Pioneer Press Newspapers, Michael Bonesteel, January 8, 1992

A Strong Show of Drawings, Boston Phoenix, Rebecca Nemser, September 20, 1991

Review, Boston Globe, Christine Temin, September 6, 1991.

Lines to Live By, South End News, Cate McQuaid, September 19, 1991

Now You See It..., Chicago Tribune, Neal Justin, January 20, 1991

Charles Kanwischer

Recent Drawings

June 18 - July 30, 2010

SHAHEEN modern and contemporary art is delighted to announce an exhibition of recent drawings by Charles Kanwischer.  The exhibition will be Kanwischer's first at SHAHEEN.  There will be an opening reception for the artist on Friday, June 18^th from 7-9 p.m. 

The modestly scaled, labor-intensive drawings that comprise Charles Kanwischer's first exhibition at SHAHEEN are based on photographic source images of (what he terms) northwest Ohio's "exurban" landscape, a heretofore sparsely populated vista in which flat expanses of farmland are being transformed into residential and commercial real estate at a rapid pace.  The imagery depicted in the artist's work derives from his own photographs of the landscape in-and-around construction sites, and images culled from real estate advertisements and listings.  Although photographic in their immediate visual appearance, Kanwischer's meticulously executed graphite drawings are driven by his obsessive immersion in and commitment to the methodical processes and physical materials of his practice.  Images emerge from layer upon layer of barely-discernable, consistently applied marks made with a graphite pencil on gessoed paper that has been mounted to wood panel.  The artist's time consuming, labor-intensive working process and the accretion of physical material that it produces imbues the surfaces of his drawings with a dense, nearly slab-like quality, and creates crowded-out images that project into the viewer's space at the same time that they recede into illusionistic depth.  Kawischer's visual subjects  - sections of support pylons, drain pipes, and pieces of construction equipment standing like ruins in the landscape; roads and canals under construction; and facades and interiors of newly constructed or recently vacated homes - take on a monumental presence, reminding us not only of the rapidly changing contemporary landscape, but also of the slow, cyclical material and physical processes that have continuously erased, renewed and transformed the landscape over the course of history, and which underscore the artist's approach to the act of drawing.

Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Charles Kanwischer received a B.F.A. in Printmaking from the University of Iowa and an M.F.A. in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University School of Art.  His work is included numerous museum collections, including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Smith College Museum of Art, and the Akron Museum of Art.  Currently, Kanwischer is Associate Professor of Art at Bowling Green State University.

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Artist Charles Kanwischer's works make a statement about suburban sprawl

By Steve Litt

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Veteran artist Charles Kanwischer, a faculty member of Bowling Green State University since 1997 and a 1989 master-of-fine-arts graduate from Yale University, is a master of what might be called "the expectant landscape." Though devoid of people or action, his meticulous, photo-based pencil drawings of suburban subdivisions-in-the-making seem to be waiting for something to happen. The result is a palpable tension. On view at Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art in Cleveland through Friday, July 30, Kanwischer's drawings are a visual lexicon of suburban sprawl. Bridge abutments, culverts, grading equipment, half-finished foundations -- the artist catalogs each subject like a collector.

Each image is drawn with great integrity. Kanwischer mounts sheets of paper on thick slabs of plywood and slowly builds his drawings out of thousands of tiny comma-like pencil strokes, slowly building images of great tonal complexity. The finished works criticize the banality of standardized suburban landscapes, while drawing attention to America's seemingly endless supply of land, which constitutes a new frontier. Out of boundless possibility, the country is building cul de sacs.

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