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Artist Cheryl Edwards

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Artist Cheryl Edwards

September 22nd, 2014 - Washington, DC

Profile: Cheryl Edwards

Wed, 09/03/2014 - 11:21am

BY HAYSEL HERNANDEZ-HOLZSHU

It’s Tuesday night and Hill resident Cheryl Edwards is busy entertaining at Studio 9. She sits behind a scattered worktable gingerly sipping white wine. Next to a half-empty bottle of wine, remnants of a cheese tray mingle with brushes and a sketchpad, forgotten for the night only to be picked up again tomorrow. The second she hears someone at the entrance, she peers up and offers them a drink. Latin jazz drifts in from the live band playing in the promenade just outside the door. One begins to get the sense this isn’t a run of the mill art gallery. In fact, number 9 is one of 27 art studios that make up the Arts Walk at Monroe Street Market, the new artist space that opened last fall across the street from Catholic University. The development was conceived to be different – a working studio-gallery combo where artists, as well as their art, are on showcase, free to create and exhibit themselves as much as their work.

“Let me know if you have any questions,” Cheryl tells visitors. She’s inviting yet unobtrusive, allowing people to navigate as they please while being vigilant of their needs. Perhaps her nonchalant style belies something deeper. “I’m an observer of people,” she admits. Indeed she is. The human form inspires Cheryl and is everywhere in her art, prominent even in the abstract.

Despite the wide-open garage-style doors, the smell of epoxy and ink lingers. If developers thought the industrial looking mix of towering ceilings, glass, and stained concrete would forever doom the style to “cold modern loft” they certainly hadn’t counted on Edwards’ art. Bursts of color explode from the walls, little volcanoes challenging their dull gray backdrop. “I have northern light and that is an artist’s dream” Edwards beams proudly, referring to the importance of neutral lighting. Out of a back corner peaks a Madonna and two children reminiscent of Botticelli’s “Madonna and Child with St. John.” Except the older child in this instance peers defiantly from the canvas, a slight scowl on his brow.

Edwards is a relative latecomer to the art world. The Miami native became a lawyer at Syracuse University and set off to litigate civil suits in New York. “It was nasty stuff,” she says referring to the divorces and custody battles she handled. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that Edwards received any formal arts education. “I’ve been painting and drawing for over 30 years. I finally realized it was something I wanted to do so I decided to go for it and attended the Art Student League in New York City.” Edwards would develop her skill over the next two years under the tutelage of Ernest Crichlow. The late Crichlow remains one of her main inspirations. Like the late, renowned master of realism Cheryl likes to portray the intricacies and struggles of the lives of blacks in America

“My art tells a story. I want people to learn something. I try to tell the ugly parts of history via visual arts. I want to spark curiosity in people about what happened and how it happened.” Whether it’s delving into the civil rights movement, slavery, or intercultural issues, Cheryl tells her stories in snippets of 25 to 31 paintings. “I don’t like to do just one painting so typically it’s a series.”

A recent series entitled “Occupy America” holds a special place for Edwards. The universality of the protesters camped out against the perceived inequality within American society resonated with her. “During the time of the Occupy movement African-Americans did not necessarily feel that it related to them. But the issues they were protesting are not black or white, they are all universal. To me I saw the civil rights movement and I saw the influence of Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr. being relived again.” Cheryl showcased how African Americans are dealing with issues of unemployment, housing, and lack education – struggles, she says, that don’t just speak to one ethnicity or racial group. Although the series showed as a solo exhibit at the African American Museum in Nassau County she has refused to sell any of the pieces. “That series is still intact because I want to travel it and show it as a whole. It is very educational,” Edwards explains.

In search for a full understanding of the African-American reality Cheryl started at the roots, travelling extensively through Africa. Those trips fueled the creativity for “The Door of No Return,” which showcased the origins of the slave trade in the African west coast. “I dealt with that series in terms of showing this ugly historical reality juxtaposed to the perseverance and elegance of the Senegalese people today.”

Her visit to South Africa inspired a second series, “Play,” which marks an evolution of Cheryl’s style with an incursion into the abstract. “For me the complexity of the technique in my art has grown over the past 30 years. I paint in terms of layers, laying one idea on top of another.” “Play” explores the use of dolls by the Ndebele with a focus on shape and color. “I like to use color, I’m very big on color,” Cheryl explains.

These days Cheryl is busy organizing material from her summer trip to Cuba, where she researched local art and culture. She says the trip was a dream come true as it gave her the opportunity to reconcile the perception of the Cuban refugee community she grew up with and the reality back on the island. “This trip completed a question for me. It gave me the chance to see the other side.” She also returned with a breadth of subject matter and new palettes to work from. To share her newfound knowledge she is organizing a number of artist talks on Thursday nights at Studio 9, beginning this September, because, as she points out, “art is about discussion and education.”

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