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Hewitt painting Veil 5

Creative Process at Biddington's

Charles Hewitt
Painter & Printmaker

CREATIVE PROCESS visits the studio of artist
Charles Hewitt on the Bowery in lower Manhattan.



Charles Hewitt Veil 5
Post 9/11 Painting
Charcoal, Oil & Shellac on Raw Linen









Hewitt painting




Charles Hewitt: In much of my work, I speak in a narrative code. The series of paintings called "The French Beauty Suite" dates from 1998-1999. In these paintings, I use images from my past: The rope is an image from my Maine seacoast childhood. The thorn is an image from the Stations of the Cross and my religious upbringing. The black cherry--an image I find both endearing and durable--is a personal image of my mother. My storytelling in this work is motivated by a higher purpose than aesthetics.


Hewitt painting French Beauty I
Large Oil on Canvas (left)






Hewitt painting Grass Harp



Charles Hewitt: I like Haitian art and the way it uses some of the same religious shapes that I use--such as barbed wire as thorns.



Hewitt painting Grass Harp (right)
Small Oil on Canvas














 Detail of Hewitt painting




Surface detail of Grass Harp (right)


Charles Hewitt: These paintings begin as built-up layers-- veils--of shapes and forms simulating transparencies scraped and re- worked. They have a lot of memory. I add the crisp-edged black symbols to pull these romantic elements together and to complete the painting.
















Charles Hewitt woodblock print Eden II



Charles Hewitt: In some of my paintings, the wood-grained, printed paper takes the place of the layered background. I borrowed the technique from my own prints where I use a wood-textured background to add light and to give the prints snap. In the paintings, the woodgrain fills the space with a field of glowing color. Then, I paint over this background with the more sharply defined forms.



Eden II
Hewitt Woodblock Print



















Hewitt painting Diver




Charles Hewitt: I have always taken great pleasure in literature and poetry. This oil on canvas plus its companion acetate piece is called "Diver". Its subject is metamorphosis. I'm intrigued by transformation imagery especially relating to the sea. I own more than 250 copies of Moby Dick.



Hewitt image "Diver" acetate + small oil on canvas












Hewitt painting



Charles Hewitt: The small paintings and their acetate enlargements were a body of work in which I was exploring an idea about meaning and emotion in painting. First, I made a small painting on canvas. Then I would enlarge it via a copying process. The reason for blowing-up the painting was one of surprise. The brush strokes enlarge in unexpected ways. There is a decorative, faux quality to a blown-up brushstroke.



Hewitt painting Black Rooster
Small Oil on Canvas--8" x 10"










Hewitt painting
Hewitt's Black Rooster
Detail of Acetate Enlargement
Overall size 31" x 41"
Charles Hewitt: "Black Rooster" uses religious imagery, perhaps with a bit of irony. You know the source: "Before the cock crows twice, thou shalt deny me thrice."

Editors Note: Jesus' words to Peter in Mark 14:30 "And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this day, even in this night, before the cock crows twice, thou shalt deny me thrice."

Charles Hewitt: The enlarged piece becomes much less serious than the original painting. I found that to achieve emotion you need illusion.








Charles Hewitt studio with Veils paintings

Charles Hewitt's Bowery studio with
Post 9/11 Paintings
"Veils Series"


Charles Hewitt: These are the paintings I have been working on since the World Trade Center attacks. They have both the atmospheric feel of my seashore pieces and the sense of smoldering and ashes from the towers--a sight visible for months from my studio windows.











Hewitt painting Veil 3
Veil 3
Charles Hewitt: The Veil Series series is on stretched but unprimed linen and painted with a mixture of materials: charcoal, paint & shellac combined with some of the stenciled forms that appear throughout my work. I like the way these paintings blend my own history and the current reality into images simultaneously dark and luminous.

Hewitt artist in his studio




Charles Hewitt





View Charles Hewitt's paintings and prints offered for sale in
BIDDINGTON'S Contemporary Art Gallery.

Price Range: $550-$6500



Charles Hewitt Selected Exhibitions:
Jim Kempner Fine Arts--2001, 1998, 1995 One Person (NYC)
Arden Gallery--1998, 1995 One Person (Boston)
Nancy Margolis Gallery--1997 One Person (NYC)
June Fitzpatrick Gallery--1997, 1995 One Person (Maine)
Vinalhaven Press--1997, 1986 Portland Museum of Art (Maine)
Ralph Green Gallery--1997, 1993 One Person (New Mexico)
Maine Coast Artists--1995, 1992
Figurative Expression Dartmouth College Gallery (NH)
M-13 Gallery, 1990, 1986, 1985 One Person (NYC)
International Print Biennale 1989, Ljublijiana, Yugoslavia
SUNY Gallery--1982, 1975 One Person (Binghampton, NY)
Brata Gallery--1972 One Person (NYC)

Charles Hewitt Selected Public Collections
Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC)
Museum of Modern Art (NYC)
New York Public Library (NYC)
Brooklyn Museum (NYC)
Library of Congress (DC)
MIT, List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge, MA)
Farnsworth Museum (Rockland, Maine)
Hood Museum, Dartmouth College (NH)
Chase Manhattan Bank (NYC)
Prudential Insurance (NYC)
State University of New York (Binghampton, NY)

Charles Hewitt Grants & Awards:
New York State Council on the Arts, CAPS Grant--1974
New York Foundation for the Arts--2000, 1997

ABOUT THIS FEATURE

CREATIVE PROCESS at Biddington's is designed as a forum for watching art in the making. Usually, this process happens in the privacy of the artist's studio. At BIDDINGTON'S Contemporary Art Gallery & upmarket, online art & antiques auctions--we find it interesting to witness the steps leading to the end product and to hear the artists speak about their work in the relaxed surroundings of their own studios.

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