Artist Talk with Chuck Ceraso
Join us at the Museum of Boulder for an artist talk with local artist and instructor Chuck Ceraso. Broaden your vision, learn about painting, drawing and more, from the reallife perspective of a professional artist.
Chuck Ceraso studied art at the University of Notre Dame and painting with Henry Hensche, at the Cape School in ProvinceTown, MA.
Chuck has been a soughtafter instructor at the Denver Art Museum, the Art Students League of Denver and the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities for many years. He also holds ongoing classes in his gallery and studio in Lafayette, CO. His work can be found in public and private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe.
“I learned that visual perception is much more complex than I had ever imagined. I learned that what we think we see and what’s actually in front of us can be quite divergent. We’re taught from childhood that our job with seeing is to know the names of things, cat, house, ball, tree, etc. and with that we actually lose our visual curiosity. We see a tree and because we “know” what a tree is we don’t see the rhythmical patterns in the limbs and leaves, we don’t see the patterns of light and shadow, we don’t see the colors that the light produces. This conceptual focus actually teaches us to not see.
Hensche would encourage us to discover more of what the world really looks like by letting go of what we think we know about it. I learned to look at the world as if I had never seen it before and have been mesmerized and inspired by the color and beauty that surrounds us.
I’ve also been discovering the more kinesthetic aspect of taking in the world. In letting go of my concepts I’m discovering that there is a way I can be permeated by the world. That the beauty of a tree exists inside me, as well as the tree itself. This has been the biggest surprise of looking outwardly, that it all exists within my field of awareness. There is no real distinction between me and the things I see.
All of this I attempt to capture in my painting. It seems to be most successful when I paint spontaneously and quickly, without letting my mind get into the process.”
From a student, “Chuck has such an expansive, curious and loving nature that it changes the way I view my world. This nature comes through in his painting as well as his teaching.”
