Residency Artist - Visual Arts

Stephen Fessler

5328 W. Pleasant Hill Rd.
Carbondale, IL  62903
Phone: (618) 549-9474
Email: defess@hotmail.com
Website: www.sfessler.com

I am a visual artist specializing in painting, most often in acrylics and oils. The residency experience that I have to offer is designed to use accident and surprise as a source of ideas. Participants begin by creating an "interesting chaos," covering their canvases with stains, drips, and random brushstrokes. We then gaze at these surfaces, "cloudgazing" to discover suggestions of images. Past residencies have involved many students collaborating to create large-scale murals. These projects are usually curriculum-based, supporting studies in science, history, or social studies. On residency resulted in an 8'X40' painting which depicts the history of the community. In other residencies students have created rainforest environments, scenes of a prehistoric past, and visions of the distant future. Many of these projects make use of found objects to create 3-dimensional effects, and so students gain experience in the use of tools as well as learning about design, composition, and color interaction. Emphasis is placed upon the sharing of ideas and mutual support. Each person's creative contributions are vital to the success of the efforts of the group as a whole.

I use the techniques that I teach in the residency experience to create my own paintings. All of my images are born of accident, and so the process of painting is one of making discoveries, one leading to the next. My interests in world mythology and folklore as well as in animals and the natural sciences are fed through frequent world travel. The images that I encounter in on my travels find their way into my work.

I have worked as a professional visual artist for over twenty years. My formal training in art began at Backangskolan in Boras, Sweden, then continued at Ohio Wesleyan University where I earned a B.F.A. I did graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania where I was awarded an M.F.A. My work has been exhibited extensively both in the U.S. and abroad, including an exhibition at the American Ambassador's Residency in New Delhi. I am a past recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist's Fellowship and was awarded a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in California. My paintings have been featured three times in the competitive journal New American Paintings.