William Swetcharnik Lectures on Central American Art at Shenandoah University, October 23
Artist and educator William Swetcharnik will present two talks on Central American art on Friday, Oct. 23, from 2 to 4 p.m. in Gregory Hall, Room 105, on Shenandoah University’s main campus in Winchester, Va. The talks are free and open to the public.
The artist beside a mural painted with native earth colors by schoolchildren in the central highlands of Honduras.
Swetcharnik’s art has been exhibited in galleries and museums in Europe and the Americas. His professional distinctions include fellowships with the Fulbright, Cintas, Arts America and Yaddo programs. In 1995, he was awarded a Senior Fulbright Fellowship to Honduras, where he founded a sustainable development program helping artists, artisans and art students in poor communities, oriented toward the use of inexpensive, indigenous materials. He remained seven years in Central America, directing this program and exploring the use of these materials, which include colored clays, crushed river rock and native woods, in his own work.
His first talk (2 to 3 p.m.) is entitled “River and Open Sea.”It traces the experience of art and cultural migration in Central America and the Caribbean, both before and beyond Columbus. The second talk (3 to 4 p.m.) is entitled “From Lagoon to Jungle to Cloud Forest.”It follows Swetcharnik's journey through Mesoamerica and his field discoveries in material culture and art history.
Both presentations will include dozens of photographs taken by Swetcharnik in the course of his projects and travels, providing a very personal window into the larger world of Latin American art and culture.
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