Biography
Charles Andrade paints in the colorist style that has evolved from his initial training in painting and art therapy, which he studied in England at Tobias School of Art & Therapy. With an in depth understanding of color as defined by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, and elaborated on by the painter Liane Collot d’Herbois; his artwork utilizes many washes of translucent color glaze that express the dynamic movement of light, color and darkness. Charles was also schooled in the art of Lazure, a unique wall treatment that creates soul-nourishing interior environments.
Andrade’s 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 while living in France. In Paris, he discovered the unique pastels made by Henri Roche and used by the great French impressionist painters, Matisse and Bonnard among others. Andrade created a series of pastel paintings that captured the light and urban landscape of the city at night and another series depicting the Cote d’Azur mountain villages.
Charles Andrade 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 North America, Europe and New Zealand.
Charles has owned and operated Lazure Custom Wall Designs for over 25 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 Tobias Center for Art & Art Therapy – MA in Fine 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
- Center for Anthroposophy (Veil Painting) – Wilton, New Hampshire
- 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 its 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.