Downtime Reflections Print

Charlene Rocci Stolo is a multi-faceted participant in the visual arts. She believes that art is a form of communication that often absorbs current societal climate or reflects self-commentary. Art reaches out from within to connect. It evokes a response from the human spirit, whether small or large, comfortable or uncomfortable. Having earned a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art with a focus on Drawing and Painting from California State University, Fullerton with additional study at California State University, Long Beach and Fullerton Community College in Interior Design and Elementary Art Education, she honed these disciplines having worked as both a designer and art teacher. Charlene co-authored a hybrid art history and art project textbook for grades six through eight. The text provided teachers with student projects that corresponded with the appropriate art history lessons. Through decades of immersive exploration, her art has evolved from representational to expressive to abstract, from two-dimensional to three-dimensional and medium from pencil to paint to wood. The predominant elements utilized in the works are shape, color, line and form. The shapes range from biomorphic to geometric, the color bold and unblended. For every student of art history, the possibility of not being influenced by former artists and periods of art is an impossibility. Usually, it is manifested in a confluence of styles and media to best communicate the artist’s intent. Charlene’s influences include architecture, sculpture and furniture design of Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Isamu Noguchi and Charles Eames, wood assemblages and box art of Louise Nevelson, kinetic shapes of Alexander Calder, intense color of Fauvists Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, distorted shapes and flattened perspective of Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh and Georges Braque and the authentic portrayals conveyed in Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits. An inventive mind is always at work, imagining. There is a desire to create, but not regularly the needed time. Through busy years, raising a family and working, Charlene’s personal work did not always make it to paper. With what time she had, she continued to participate in small gallery exhibits in San Pedro, Brea, Cambria, and Art A Fair in Laguna Beach.