BIOGRAPHY

Saul Chernick (BFA, RISD & MFA, Rutgers) has exhibited in numerous galleries, museums, and cultural institutions including the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, the Bronx Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum, the Lower East Side Printshop, Rush Arts Gallery, Senior & Shopmaker Gallery. He has had solo exhibitions at Soloway Gallery, Max Protech Gallery, Franklin Art Works, La Montagne Gallery, and NURTUREart. He lives in Kingston, New York.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Objects that are capable of signaling both the ancient and the futuristic, possess a disorienting power. At their best, they invite us to into the unconstrained headspace of sci-fi and fantasy. I want to see sculptures that remind us that the spirit world is all around us and that curiosity and play are essential to living. An intuitive voice calls me to make objects to serve this purpose. It directs me to fashion materials to exacting, sometimes beguiling specifications – this is also a form of play.

Some pieces begin with a utilitarian object, either found or purchased, and adorned with intricate patterns until it becomes purely ceremonial. Other pieces are invented deities that assume zoomorphic and abstracted forms. All the pieces are made with a homemade sculpting compound that acts like a skin. It’s stone-like surface, with colors baked in, shares affinities with several age-old crafting traditions including ceramics, masonry, tilework, and inlay.

 I make work that responds to the sensibilities of children because in childhood, play and learning are one and the same. Play is a mode of communication, a medium for social connection, a means to explore, release and envision possibilities.