Biography
Charles Andrade paints in the color-field style that has evolved from his initial training in Anthroposophic Art therapy, which he studied in England in the late 1970s and early '80s at Tobias Center for Arts & Art Therapy. It was there, while a student of Goethean color theory, as elucidated by artist and color theorist Liane Collot d'Herbois, that he learned how Color is a living interaction between darkness and light and how this dynamic drama is mirrored in the life of the human soul. Charles was also schooled in the art of Lazure, a unique wall treatment that creates soul-nourishing interior environments.

Charles’ canvas work makes use of the same translucent glazes of color that characterize his Lazure wall work. He became interested in landscape painting several years ago when he took a break from the large, fluid painting format to investigate the art of chalk pastel painting. He was fascinated by the theme of the “romantic/mystic artist” while spending time in France creating a series of pastels that capture the light and landscape of the Cote d’Azur mountain villages near Nice where he lived. Charles currently lives and maintains a studio in the Roaring Fork Valley, Colorado. His artwork is represented by Galerie DeVore and LivAspenArt in Aspen, Colorado and 78th Street Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His paintings can be found in private collections in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe and New Zealand.

Charles has owned and operated Lazure Custom Wall Designs for over 20 years - a mural and decorative/ faux painting business, specializing in a unique European glazing finish called Lazure. Charles lectures, teaches fine art classes and offers Lazure workshops worldwide.

Personal Statement
“The fluid quality of the color is very important as it mirrors the transcendent quality of the human soul. Much like a true process of thinking, where one begins with a hazy idea of what one wants to focus on with the mind, gradually the spiraling process of creation intensifies from the light to the darkness of a concrete thought or the material end of a painting…In the pastel medium, I am interested in the form of things, opaque color and how value creates the forms I am trying to define. I see it as a balance to the ethereal large scale wall and canvas work I do otherwise: contraction and expansion, two principles of human life and being.”

Education/Professional Background

  • 1999 - Pastel Painting course with: Albert Handell
  • 1995 - Water Color Master class: Leszek Forczek
  • 1985 - Color Theory/Advanced Watercolor Studio Master Classes with: Liane Collot d’Herbois
  • 1981 - Post-graduate Certificate in Art Therapy/Fine Arts, Tobias Center for Art & Art Therapy,
    Forest Row, ENGLAND

Teaching Positions 

Aspen Art Museum (Color Theory) - Aspen, Colorado
Austin Waldorf School (Painting) - Austin, Texas
Camphill (Painting/Music) - Bristol, ENGLAND
Carbondale Council for Humanities & the Arts - Carbondale, Colorado
Detroit Waldorf School (Painting) - Detroit, Michigan
Deutsche Schule Washington, DC (Pastel) - Potomac, Maryland
Docherty Atelier (Veil Painting) - Auckland, New Zealand
Marymount University (Lazure, Color Theory) - Arlington, Virginia
Mountain Masterpieces Arts & Crafts Fair (Color Theory) - Snowmass, Colorado
Red Brick Center for the Arts (Drawing/Painting) - Aspen, Colorado
Rudolf Steiner Institute (Painting, Drawing, Pastel, Lazure) - Waterville, Maine
Sunbridge College (Painting) - Southfield, Michigan
Titirangi Steiner School, (Watercolor/Color Theory) - Titerangi, New Zealand
Waldorf Education Association of Colorado (Pedagogical Painting) - Durango, Colorado
Washington Waldorf School (Painting/Art History/Adult Art Education) - Bethesda, Maryland      
Waldorf School on the Roaring Fork (Painting) - Carbondale, Colorado
Wyly Community Art Center (Pastel) - Basalt, Colorado                                              

Co-Founded

  • Color in Art Michaelmas Art Exhibitions - Bethesda, MD
  • Metamora Visual Arts Fine Arts & Design Company - Detroit, MI
  • Momo’s Café (Performing Arts Café) - Royal Oak, MI
  • Lazure Custom Wall Designs - Takoma Park, MD

Influences 
The greatest influence on my artistic approach came during my late 20's when I began studying the works of Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy. Steiner's approach to the Arts was radical in that he believed that artists need to work with their medium, understanding the inherent qualities in each art form: Drawing (black and white/value), Painting (the contracting and expanding world of moving color), Dance (moving to either tone or the word), Sculpture (the convexity/concavity elements of form in space) or as in any of the other art forms. Steiner believed the mission of the Arts was to bring humanity closer to the spiritual world. With the idea that everything of matter has a spiritual element behind it, and by working consciously with the matter/medium of their art, artists come closer to communion with the spiritual reality living within matter (water, air, earth, fire) and it will speak to them of it's divine nature. In this way Steiner’s approach to what the Arts are here to do is very different than a Post-Modern Art world approach. Utilizing Steiner's meditative approach to create new forms out of matter, the cynicism characteristic of the present period of Art is replaced by a hopeful, joyous communion with movement, color, tone, value and structure.

Favorite Artists 
For color theory I continue to believe that Rudolf Steiner/Goethe’s color theory, as elaborated by Liane Collot d'Herbois, is the deepest, most spiritually rich approach to work with. Other favorite artists include: Mark Rothko, Wolf Kahn, Pierre Bonnard, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Leszek Forczek and Albert Handell.

Galleries & Exhibitions

  • 2011 LivAspenArt, Aspen, CO
  • 2010 Galerie DeVore, Aspen, CO
  • 2010 Brush Marks, The Aspen Chapel Gallery, Aspen, CO
  • 2009 Roaring Fork Open, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO
  • 2009 Kaleidoscope of Hope, Saxy’s Café, Basalt, CO
  • 2008 Different Strokes, Red Brick Center for the Arts, Aspen, CO
  • 2008 The Day of the Dead: Shrines & Altars, CCAH, Carbondale, CO
  • 2007 Seeing RED, The Aspen Chapel Gallery, Aspen, CO
  • 2007 The Artist’s Eye, Red Brick Council for the Arts, Aspen, CO
  • 2007 Dia de los Muertos, CCAH, Carbondale, CO
  • 2007 Roaring Fork Open, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, C
  • 2006 Colorscapes, Aspen Colors Gallery, Basalt, CO
  • 2006 Land Escapes, Red Brick Center for the Arts, Aspen, CO
  • 2005 The Healing Power of Creativity, US Bank, Aspen, CO
  • 2005 Art & Healing: Color in Art, Carbondale Council for Arts & Humanities Gallery, Carbondale, CO
  • 2005 25th Annual CCAH Valley Visual Arts Show, Kahhak Fine Arts & School, Carbondale, CO
  • 2005 Creativity Heals, Valley View Hospital, Glenwood Springs, CO
  • 2005 Light, Color, Darkness, Group Show, 78th Street Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
  • 2005 Painting Out of Color, Group Show, 78th Street Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
  • 2005 Healthy Planet Cover Artists, Group Show, Aspen, CO
  • 2005 Color Intervals, Group Show, 78th Street Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
  • 2005 Healing the Earth, Group Show, 78th Street Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
  • 2005 Roaring Fork Open, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO
  • 2004 AIA Gallery at The Aspen Club, Creative Expressions: Movement, Body & Nature, Aspen, CO
  • 2004 Open Studio Solo Exhibition, Basalt, CO
  • 2004 Aspen Artists Cooperative, Juried Group Show, Aspen, CO
  • 2004 78th Street Gallery, Farewell Exhibit, Washington, DC
  • 2004 Community Bank of Colorado, Solo Exhibition, Basalt, CO
  • 2004 Mountain Masterpieces Arts & Crafts Fair, Juried Group Show, Snowmass, CO
  • 2004 Carbondale Council on the Arts & Humanities, Artists for Peace, Carbondale, CO
  • 2004 Alpine Bank, Studio Tour Juried Group Show, Aspen, CO
  • 2004 Waldorf School on the Roaring Fork, Studio Tour, Carbondale, CO
  • 2004 Meditative Landscapes, 78th Street Gallery, Group Show, Santa Fe, NM
  • 2003 78th Street Gallery, Spring/Summer: Art-Color-Spirit, Washington, DC
  • 2003 78th Street Gallery, Michaelmas Exhibit: Art as Inner Activity, Washington, DC
  • 2003 78th Street Gallery, Holiday Exhibit, Washington, DC
  • 2002 78th Street Gallery, Art-Color-Spirit Group Show, Washington, DC
  • 2000 Open Studios Group Show, San Francisco, CA
  • 1999 ArtMecca.com, virtual gallery (based in San Francisco, CA)
  • 1995 National Institute of Health Group Show, Bethesda, MD
  • 1992-1998 Annual Color in Art Group Show, Washington Waldorf School, Bethesda, MD
  • 1984 Scrubious Pip Bookstore, Group show, Royal Oak, MI
  • 1983 Inn Seasons Restaurant, Solo exhibition, Royal Oak, MI

For a list of Andrade’s Lazure projects in commercial and educational spaces, click here .


Q&A/Philosophy

How long have you been painting? 
I've been painting since I was a teenager. Earliest inspirations come from the times my dad would take the kids to the Detroit Art Institute on weekends and plop me in front of large canvases while he went scrambling for my younger siblings. From there I learned how to draw from my oldest brother. He drew dinosaurs and taught me how to do it, then how to copy comics out of the newspapers. I  saved allowance money and bought some colored pencils that introduced me to color. I started my own comic strip along with another cartoonist friend. Catholic high school was pretty slim in the arts so I did a lot of it at home on my own. 

College was the next big influence, although it was primarily the drawing classes that were instructive. The painting classes were more a "come and do what you want and I'll critize it later" sort of pedagogy that hallmarked the 70's approach to the arts...anything goes was the basis for creating.  It really didn't teach me anything other than the instructor didn't care much for my approach. At that time my artwork was more pure psychological/art therapy than anything I'd now call Art. I was lost in the woods and over three years time I knew it, so I quit the university my junior year, moved back to Detroit, lived with my parents and got a job. Over that period I continued to paint on my own, figuring out the artistic puzzle of my life and reading the lives of major artists. 

What influences your painting?
The greatest influence on my artistic approach came during my middle to late twenties when I began studying the works of Rudolf Steiner and his Anthroposophy. In a nutshell, Steiner's approach to the arts was, and still is, radical in that he thought that artists need to work with their medium, understand the inherent qualities in each artform, whether it be drawing (black and white/value), painting (the contracting & expanding world of moving color), dance (moving to either tone or the word), sculpture (the convexity/concavity elements of form in space),or any of the other seven arts. Steiner believed the mission of the arts was to bring humanity closer to the spiritual world. In the knowledge that everything of matter had and has a spiritual element behind it, and by working consciously with the matter/medium of their art, artists come closer to communion with the spiritual reality living within matter, whether it be water, air, earth or fire, and it will speak to them of its divine nature. In this way Steiner's approach to what the arts are here to do is very different than what the post-modern artworld tries to do. Utilizing Steiner's meditative approach to creating new forms out of matter, the cynicism characteristic of  the present period of art is replaced by a hopeful, joyous communion with movement, color, tone, value and structure. 

Briefly describe your painting style.
My present painting style, what would be called "color-field painting" in the artworld, has evolved from my initial training in Anthroposophic art therapy in England in the late 70's early 80's at the Tobias Center for Arts & Art Therapy.  It was there while studying Goethean color theory as elucidated by artist and color theorist Liane Collot d' Bois that I learned how color is a living interaction between darkness & light and how this dynamic drama is mirrored in the life of the human soul. While studying there I learned the art of  Lazure, a unique wall coloring treatment that uses this symbiotic understanding between color and the human soul to create soul-nourishing interior environments. The color theory behind this work is described in Collot d'Bois' two books on color. My canvas work uses the same translucent glazes of fluid color that characterize my lazure wall work. The fluid quality of the color is important as it mirrors the transcendent quality of the human soul. Much like a true process of thinking, where one begins with a hazy idea of what one wants to focus on with the mind, gradually the spiraling process of creation densifies from the light to the darkness of a concrete thought or the material end of a painting! 

How long have you been painting landscapes? 
I grew interested in landscape painting several years ago when I took a break from the large, fluid paint format to investigate the art of pastel painting with chalk pastels. At the time I was reading Robert Rosenblum's Art in the Northern Romantic Tradition and was fascinated by the theme of the Romantic/mystic artist. I'd been admiring the work of French post-impressionist Pierre Bonnard and the way he scintillated colors on his sparking canvases. I was also studying the work of Wolf Kahn, one of America's foremost colorist/landscape painters and how he was able to create images that could be seen as either abstract or landscapes. Kahn's approach is to use the landscape format to hang his unique colorwork on.  He has written an informative book on his pastel paintings. In my pastel style, I'm also influenced by the technique and value studies of American artist Albert Handell. In my studies with Handell in Maryland, I learned much about the role of value in creating space and defining form. I approach pastel painting very differently than the fluid work I do on canvas. I'm more interested in the form of things and opaque color and how value creates the forms I'm trying to define. I see it as a balance to the ethereal large scale wall and canvas work I do otherwise. Contraction and expansion--two principles of  human life and being. 

What are your aspirations for your work and what would be your dream job? 
I would like to now work on large scale commercial jobs, hospitals, office buildings, churches or health centers, where I could bring the qualities of living color to spaces that influence many people at one time. I'd like it if a large scale mural were involved. Personally I'm always trying to achieve a better, more intimate understanding of color, light and darkness. 

What is Modern Art?
This is a sad question. Increasingly I feel that modern art is characterized by the whim and fancies of an insulated artworld that is more concerned with its own economic/narcissistic survival than with trying to bring a new impulse to the communities from which it springs. Modern, post-modern, deconstructive, or whatever it's called now, is hallmarked by the current fad or "ism" on the surface of it, with museums and galleries vying for the latest collection that private collectors might buy up and donate to them. For the artists these are increasing times of spiritual ambiguity and questioning of purpose in the pursuit of a career in a world that is so guilded and politically incestuous. Young people pursuing the creative star are turning  increasingly to the realms of service and community to find a place for their creative aspirations rather than prostitute themselves and their offerings to the marketplace. This is a time of spiritual hunger.
 

Lazure Custom Wall Designs
lazure@lazure.com