Charles Thomas O'Neil: Standing on the Peel September 9, 2010

rtist’s Reception & Gallery Talk: Friday, September 10th, 5-7pm

The Exhibitions Program of Bard College at Simon’s Rock announces the opening of its 2010-2011 season at the Liebowitz Art Gallery with an exhibition by Stockbridge-based artist Charles Thomas O’Neil. An artist’s reception and gallery talk will take place at the gallery on Friday, September 10th from 5:00-7:00pm. The Liebowitz Art Gallery is located within the Liebowitz building at Simon’s Rock, across from the College’s central campus at the intersection of Hurlburt and Alford Roads. The Art Gallery is open Friday - Sunday 12-5 pm and by appointment.

Charles Thomas O’Neil was born in New York City in 1966 and now lives and works in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He received his B.S. in Fine Art and Art History from Skidmore College in 1988. In the summer of 2009 O’Neil’s abstract paintings were showcased alongside the work of early Modernists from the collection of the Berkshire Museum in an exhibition called Color and Form: The Language of Abstract Art. In recent years O’Neil has held solo shows with Lemmons Contemporary Art in Tribeca and Linda Durham Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The artist’s work can also be found in many public collections including the Portland Museum of Art, Asiel Corporation, Time-Warner, Inc. and Smith Barney, Inc.

Standing on the Peel includes new work on panel and copper. The curator of Color and Form, Helmut Wohl, wrote that O’Neil’s “manner of working is a fluid process, which he refers to as ‘push and pull’, in which shapes and colors emerge in playful combinations and interactions, the result of the possibilities that the space offers as well as those found by the artist as he works.” O’Neil states that his goal is for “the viewer to define what they are looking at - the forms are real enough to provocatively draw the viewer in but amorphous enough to keep one guessing.”