Char Schwall is a visual artist in the areas of painting, drawing and fiber arts; she is also an arts educator with extensive experience in multidisciplinary education. Her work investigates the natural environment, principles of growth and organic systems and color as a language. Her most recent body of work addresses ideas of gender identity and the fluidity of subjectivities through body/brain connections. As an early childhood educator, Schwall has extensively studied the educational system in the municipality of Reggio-Emilia, Italy, and co-edited and co-authored the book In the Spirit of the Studio: Learning from the Atelier of Reggio Emilia. During the COVID-19 crisis, she sewed masks as a volunteer for KC Helps and The Sewing Labs in Kansas City.

ARTIST  STATEMENT

Char Schwall’s creative practice is an exploration of two material languages: paint and textiles. By placing two material languages (two material bodies of knowledge) in conversation with one another, her work investigates concepts of surface, gendered space, fluidity, and overall softness. The aesthetic trajectory in the work is one of openness, growth, the expansion of organic systems and morphology. The writing of French philosopher Luce Irigaray, who explores the complex, and sometimes controversial, relationship between the feminine and the fluid, also inspires her work. Schwall’s aesthetic seeks to create places of openness, of a relation to the other; a generative place where birth and rebirth can continuously prevail. Through these visual actions, the works embody a womb-space, a gendered space that reveals multiple states of transition.

ABOUT #FUTURE

I began the #FUTURE program with questions that addressed gender implications of different media and materials: is sewing a feminine art or not? Do materials have a culturally implied gender or not? I first investigated these questions through digital collages, using imagery of fiber arts, garments and gender transformation through images and sketches of the brain. These collages envision a new body of work that addresses the mind-body aspect of transgender experience.

For my collaborative group with Beth Grabowski and Clare Thomas, we created a project that had several different stages. The project, Woman As, consisted of us each buying second-hand clothes in thrift shops, transforming the garments and then giving them away to someone or back to the shops. Processes of memory, empathy and collaboration were key ideas.

The garments that I chose to transform were connected to stories and desires from my childhood, and addressed desires from the past that were restricted due to gender normativity. The transformed garments will have a new future, as they will be owned and used by someone new. Our group also created a sewing circle to reenact Woman’s collaborative traditions as well. The sewing circle was documented through video recording. The work I have created, or co-created, as part of the #FUTURE program will inform my creative practice for years to come.