URBAN RATTLES
Charlie Hewitt
Opening Reception
Saturday, September 15, 6-8 p.m.
Jim Kempner Fine Art is pleased to present an exhibition of new steel sculptures and woodcuts by Charlie Hewitt. This will be the artist’s seventh solo exhibition at Jim Kempner Fine Art. There will be an opening reception for the artist on Saturday, September 15, 2012 from 6-8 p.m.
Charlie Hewitt is the quintessential American artist, a modern-day renaissance man whose work marries ideals of intellectual heft and physicality. The work in this show includes many similar components to Hewitt’s public sculpture Urban Rattle, located between 22nd and 23rd streets, adjacent to the High Line. Brooklyn Swing (105 x 165 x 31”), the monumental piece featured in Jim Kempner Fine Art’s sculpture garden displays a reinterpretation of the brightly colored shapes and playful spirit of the public installation in a horizontal format. Hewitt said, “I’m basically a painter, I want to put color on everything.” The result is a bold translation of his visual vocabulary.
This exhibition also includes several of Hewitt’s impressive iconic woodcuts, which have been produced to match the scale of his sizeable sculptures. The hands-on nature of the woodcut printing process allows Hewitt to create details that convey a nuanced and visceral sense of being. Hewitt’s works are an expression of self and reflect a wide range of human emotions that make them intensely relatable.
These large-scale works require a great degree of discipline to produce, but the reward is evident in their compelling visual scale. Often, these larger-than-life pieces begin as sketches and doodles. Calypso, a particularly vibrant woodcut with overlapping forms and an autumnal palette, is an example of this evolutionary process. Hewitt preserves the immediacy of the initial drawing throughout the production process, pursuant to his belief that the best art is produced when people put their creative impulses first.
In addition to his shows at Jim Kempner Fine Art, Hewitt’s recent solo exhibitions include a retrospective of his paintings, sculpture and works on paper at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine and a retrospective of his prints at the Bates College Museum in Lewiston, Maine. Hewitt’s work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; New York Public Library, NY; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Library of Congress, D.C.; Portland Museum of Art, ME; and many others.
The artist lives and works in Portland, Maine.