Caryl M. Christian Levy’s artistic expertise encompasses a range of mediums. They include painting, music, performance, and printmaking.
With a post-impressionist sensibility and deep roots in American regionalism, her mixed-media collaged monotypes explore issues of domesticity, nostalgia and the familiar. She is also a public artist, and an arts educator and leader. This biographical representation of her work is further supplemented by a recent interview with the artist, exclusively with The Hollywood Sentinel for NewsBlaze, and its world-wide affiliates.
Bruce Edwin of The Hollywood Sentinel states, “The art of Caryl M. Christian Levy is of immense importance to the body of art in America and the world. In addition to her massively impressive public art, which is of monumental scale and impact, her smaller, yet no less important fine art is of great originality and depth, finely steeped in the traditional techniques of early American and European artisans in the realm of painting, printmaking, and even fashion. Together with these influences among others, Caryl M. Christian Levy elevates the ordinary into the extraordinary, and the mundane into the magnificent. She is an exciting American artist who is deserving of great attention.”
Italian Influence
Caryl’s latest body of collage work evolved from several monotype printmaking workshops in Tuscany, Italy in 2004. While exploring various traditional chine colle techniques, Caryl introduced her long-held treasure trove of lace tatting, crocheting created by her Grandmothers. These fabrics were combined with tissue dress patterns during the printing process producing a body of work imbued with layered texture, color, multi-generational history and meaning.
The downtown L.A. art walk location for Caryl M. Christian Levy changed to 634 South Spring Street, at the Lounge, downtown Los Angeles, California, November 14th, 2013.
Artist Statement
In a recent statement, Caryl describes one of her early experiences with this unique art-making process. “My first attempt to combine the pattern pieces with the monotypes resulted in the ‘Self Portrait.’ This introduced a complicated printing ‘pull’ from the press since I used five smaller plates in an arrangement on two full sheets of printing paper with carefully positioned pattern tissues. I was so involved in the printing process and plate registration that I left my latex gloves – that I had been using to keep my hands clean – on the plate under the paper and ran it thru the press. The happy accident gave the work a good ‘figurative’ reference as well as left the artists’ mark on the piece-both things I really liked. So in future work, I collaged complete pattern pieces and continued to add the gloves that I used during the creation of the print as a reference to the figure and the authentic handcrafted nature of an original work.”
Caryl continues to use family artifacts embedded in her artwork by pulling from past remnants of her family experience and historical reference. She is a Fulbright Scholar who received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from the University of Nebraska and Iowa, and Masters of Public Art Studies from the University of Southern California. She is an accomplished studio and public artist, educator, and art administrator working out of her studio in the quaint district of Historic Chinatown, downtown Los Angeles.
Award Winning Artist and Educator
Formerly Director of Research and Special Projects at USC Roski School of Fine Arts, Caryl’s recent public art installation near Philadelphia, Sonic Wall, has won the National Merit Award from the Illuminating Engineering Society. She has exhibited frequently at such recent shows as Chain Letter, Shoshana Wayne Gallery; Brand 39, Glendale Library Art Gallery; Four Artists: Singular Impressions, Manhattan Beach Arts Center; and Celebration of Art and Architecture, Xian, China. Two samples of Caryl’s artistic diversity and excellence are captured in the images of her works here.
She says, “My practice as a professional artist, educator and public art professional brings together many related disciplines providing a framework for collaborations with artists, cultural institutions, communities and city programs, and the public and private development in the realization of public art projects, programs and site specific commissioned public artworks. I currently lecture, instruct, and conduct workshops and presentations addressing the public realm with the goal of generating new arts policies and guidelines through inclusive community dialogues.”
Collaboration With Artist John Levy
Caryl M. Christian Levy continues, “As an artist, my painting and studio work comes from a Midwestern influence during the late 60’s and early 70’s. Most of us working during this decade saw the shift in object to process, the impact upon my studio art manifests in current installations created with my long time art collaborator and husband, John Levy. These monumental installations touch every aspect of my art and performance music background in addition to combining my tendency towards collaborative projects.”
Visit the official website of Caryl M. Christian Levy to view more of her work, and to contact the artist for acquisitions of existing inventory and commission requests at: www.CMCfinearts.us.
Listen to the exclusive audio interview with artist Caryl M. Christian Levy here in the link below:
Editor’s Note: The downtown L.A. art walk location for Caryl M. Christian Levy changed to 634 South Spring Street, at the Lounge, downtown Los Angeles, California, November 14th, 2013.
For press interview requests with the artist and lecturer, contact the publicity department at: 310-226-7176.
