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FAQ

Common Questions

Common questions about Charlie Sheard his work, teaching and writing.

Where can Charlie Sheard's work be seen?

The complete catalogue — paintings, drawings and collaboration spanning 1981 to today — is published on this site. Latest work.

Charlie Sheard is represented by:

Public collections holding his work include:

Current work and exhibition announcements are posted to Instagram (@charlie_sheard).

Full exhibition history — 70+ solo exhibitions across Australia, Europe, the USA and China.

What is meant by "Absolute Painting"?

In the artist’s words:

… I have used the term Absolute Painting, firstly because I want to make clear that Abstract Painting is intimately linked to Nineteenth Century conceptions of Absolute Music. But the term Absolute Painting also suggests the absolute necessity and reality of the work of art, that is: its nature as an absolute value, which is opposed in every way to the pragmatism of daily life and reality. The artistic intention, at this stage of my life, naturally, is to attempt to bring my total experience of painting to bear on each painting I work on.

Source: Charlie Sheard: The Music of Pure Abstraction

How are the paintings made?

Most of the paintings on stretched canvas are painted with the hands using Old Holland oil colours. Traditional pigments have been favoured, but the use of unmixed colour straight from the tube has been avoided. The linen is usually prepared in the traditional way with a white ground, then a coloured imprimatura, either in acrylic or in oil. There is extensive underpainting in most of the paintings. Saturated white-lead based tints are the basis for finishing layers, but there is also glazing.

The large unstretched canvases are painted directly into the linen, working with the whole body on the floor. In many cases, layers are created by the initial pouring of Acrylic and Vinyl colours over the body, which then moves around within the painting. Several canvases are developed from an initial painting made onto the body. This is then transferred to the canvas by printing, rubbing and natural movement of the body. In this case, either vinyl or non-toxic water-soluble oil paints have been used.

What is Pure Abstraction in art?

Pure Abstraction is non-geometric abstract painting in which the processes of painting are ends in themselves — not representation of something else. From Charlie Sheard’s essays:

Abstraction, which is rooted in German Romanticism and nineteenth century Symbolism, is the mystical branch of the art of painting, in which the processes of painting are understood to be profound ends in themselves.

…in pure abstraction, it is the processes of painting themselves that give rise to the painting. Such painting is not representation of something else, it is the arising of itself.

The argument continues in Pure Abstraction, Colour as Substance (2014) and Kandinsky: Cause and Effect (2009), among the essays.

Source: Pure Abstraction, Colour as Substance

Which collections hold Charlie Sheard's work?

Charlie Sheard’s work is represented in public, private and corporate collections throughout the world, including:

Corporate collections include Macquarie Bank, KPMG, Allens and the Faber-Castell Collection. Numerous private collections hold his work across Australia, the UK, USA, Belgium, Germany and China.

The complete list appears under selected collections.

Why are the paintings made with the body?

Painting is a bodily practice — many of the paintings are made with the hands, or directly by the body working within the canvas on the floor. From the essay The Body (2021):

The origin of painting, and the history of painting, are completely tied to the human body; the body is the key to what painting IS. At the beginning, painting was on the body. […] Not only is painting made on the body, it is also made by the body (the artist’s body).

My aim is to transmit bodily energy and emotions directly into pure absolute paintings.

See how the paintings are made, read The Body in full, or browse all essays.

Source: The Body

Is Charlie Sheard's work available to purchase or acquire?

Charlie Sheard is represented internationally by:

Browse paintings, drawings and collaborative work in the catalogue, enquiries should be directed to the gallery for the relevant region. For all other enquiries, contact Charlie Sheard.

How can Charlie Sheard be contacted?

The studio receives enquiries via:

  • Email — studio, press and general enquiries
  • Instagram — current work and exhibition announcements

Acquisition and sales enquiries are handled by the representing galleries:

Has Charlie Sheard written about painting?

Charlie Sheard’s essays on abstract painting are published on this site:

  • A History of Abstraction (2007) — abstraction’s genealogy from Dionysian religion through Wagner, Symbolisme, Kandinsky and the New York School
  • Kandinsky: Cause and Effect (2009) — Kandinsky’s language of forms and its roots in the Munich collections, ancient Greece and Byzantium
  • Φοῖνιξ (2011) — materiality, embodiment, and the work of art as temple, after Heidegger
  • Pure Abstraction, Colour as Substance (2014) — Truth and Beauty, materiality versus materialism, and painting technique
  • The Body (2021) — painting as a bodily practice, from cave painting to the late Titian
  • The History of European Painting (2021) — the continuity of European painting from Giotto to abstraction

Charlie Sheard: The Music of Pure Abstraction was published by Peking Art Associates in 2021. See also “is there a book about Charlie Sheard?”.

Is there a book about Charlie Sheard?

Charlie Sheard: The Music of Pure Abstraction was published by Peking Art Associates in 2021.

The book includes eight essays — with a preface by Zhang Zikang, Director of the Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing — an interview with the artist, and a catalogue of approximately five hundred and fifty works made between 1981 and 2021. It is available as an eBook on Amazon.

An earlier catalogue, Charlie Sheard by Terence Maloon (Drill Hall Publishing, 48 pages, ISBN 9780994258472), is available from Australian booksellers.

For reviews and further reading, see the selected bibliography.

Source: Charlie Sheard: The Music of Pure Abstraction

Did Charlie Sheard teach?

Charlie Sheard taught a three-year oil painting course at The Charlie Sheard Studio School for seventeen years (1995–2012). He has lectured at the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts, and lectured regularly at the Art Gallery of NSW and the University of NSW. His essays on the history and technique of abstract painting are published on this site.

Students and The Charlie Sheard Studio School alumni practising today include:

Charlie Sheard wrote of The Charlie Sheard Studio School:

My enthusiasm for such painting has often been misunderstood. I have no interest in paintings as “antiques”, nor in the recreation of historical painting styles, but I do believe passionately in attempting to create a contemporary painting which is comparable in depth and complexity and comparable in its engagement with Beauty, to Old Master oil painting. As such, I always conceived of my Course as a bridge between historical oil painting methods and contemporary practice.

I was only thirty-five when I started teaching the Oil Painting Course; at that time my approach to historical methodology was rather more literal …. At the age of fifty-two I can see that painting is the kind of art in which materiality and process are, in themselves, the very things that draw forth The Muses, and therefore that the creative processes of painting are, in a real sense, a Pierian Spring. This is the basis for my belief in continuity of practice (for example between Old Master painters such as Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt and Velasquez, and twentieth century painters such as Picasso, Kandinsky, Pollock and Sigmar Polke). As suggested here, both The Oil Painting Course, and the way in which it was taught, changed greatly with the passing of time, correspondent to my shifting understandings. Drawing received increasing attention and emphasis over the years, as I began to comprehend the relationship between weakness of drawing and weakness of materiality in much contemporary painting. The Course which I have been teaching most recently was designed to force the student to focus on the three fundamental elements of the art of painting: materiality (in the broadest possible sense), drawing (that is: the energy of the body), and beauty of colour. This threefold structural relationship was explored in as practical a way as possible, through our weekly investigations into pre-twentieth century practice.

— Charlie Sheard, September 2012 (excerpted from “Colour and Substance: an exhibition of the Charlie Sheard Studio School 2012”)

Recent teaching:

  • 2026 — International Residency Workshop, Beijing, China, 8–22 July
  • 2018 — Visiting Lecturer and Artist-in-Residence, Kogarah St George TAFE, Australia
  • 2018 — Visiting Lecturer, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China
  • 2017–2019 — Postgraduate-level courses for artists on multiple occasions, Sydney, Australia
  • 2016 — Visiting Lecturer, School of Art & Design, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
  • 2015–2016 — Visiting Lecturer and Artist-in-Residence, Kogarah St George TAFE, Australia
  • 2015 — Visiting Lecturer, Manly Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia
  • 2014 — Lecturer and Artist-in-Residence, University of Newcastle, Australia
  • 2012–2016 — Lecturer in Painting and Colour for undergraduate and postgraduate painting classes, UNSW Art & Design, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
  • 2012 — Visiting Lecturer, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China

To enquire, contact Charlie Sheard.

Has Charlie Sheard exhibited in China?

Charlie Sheard has been exhibiting in China since 2012 and has lectured at the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts. Selected exhibitions:

  • 2022 — Charlie Sheard, CHAO Art Centre, Beijing, organised by Peking Art Associates
  • 2021 — Charlie Sheard, Art Shanghai (ART021), with Peking Art Associates
  • 2018 — Huqinwu and Charlie Sheard, two-man show, Boding Gallery, Beijing
  • 2018 — Charlie Sheard, 10 Space, Songzhuang, Beijing
  • 2012 — Works on Paper, Unit One Art Space, 798, Beijing

He is represented in China by Peking Art Associates (北京艺术伙伴), Beijing. See the full exhibition history.

What is The Charlie Sheard Studio School?

The Charlie Sheard Studio School was founded in 1995. The school offered a three year course in the 16th and 19th century oil painting materials, techniques and principles. The course is for practising artists and postgraduate level students. It is designed to function as a bridge between contemporary painting practice and the methodology of the old masters.

Sheard taught the Oil Painting Course for seventeen years; the final class concluded in 2012. On its purpose, from his closing essay:

I have long believed that a solid training in materials and techniques should be the basis for any education in visual arts. […] The Course was developed out of research into historical methods and techniques, but it was also built on my love for the beauty and depth of fifteenth to eighteenth century European oil paintings.

The Course which I have been teaching most recently was designed to force the student to focus on the three fundamental elements of the art of painting: materiality (in the broadest possible sense), drawing (that is: the energy of the body), and beauty of colour.

See also did Charlie Sheard teach, and the essays on painting.

Source: Charlie Sheard, September 2012

Who built this site?

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