Workspace Installation at Brownmed, Boston
Central Park, 72x96” oil on canvas now hangs in this modern corporate space. An art collection in an organization creates a thoughtful and inspiring environment for those work in the surroundings. You can see artwork in art galleries, private collections in homes and corporate developments as well. I’m grateful for the placement by Meridian Art Consulting, formerly known as Boston Art.
Princess Margaret Lottery
What a thrill it is to have 2 new aerial paintings in the Spring 2025 Princess Margaret Lottery Home facilitated by Art Interiors in Toronto. Brian Gluckstein and his team have designed another stunning home to be won by a lucky ticket holder. Bird’s Eye View I and II, 40x40”, oil on canvas, framed gracing this lovely resting area. A few words about the paintings:
Sherry Czekus captures the vibrant pulse of city life through her striking figurative urban crowd scenes. Each large-format canvas immerses viewers in a colorful tapestry of contemporary figures, showcasing the dynamic interactions and emotions of everyday moments. Ideal for both home and corporate spaces, Czekus’s artwork infuses each environment with energy and a sense of connection.
Zoneone Arts brings Sherry Czekus to you...
Sherry Czekus, Painter
February 5, 2024 By Deborah Blakeley
What led you to paint everyday life?
Photographing the liveliness of city life and crowds of people is what led to my interest in painting everyday life. Figurative painting has always been a draw for me but not in a portraiture sense. The city crowd, in its simultaneous specificity and anonymity, became the subject matter of a kind of figurative painting that did not focus on individual identity. The crowd itself has become the single entity. Observational paintings of the everyday have generated fresh perspectives as I record the crowd and its progressive changes over time, particularly in fashion and electronic technology.
Comment on physical crowds and how they been affected by Covid?
The most startling effect of Covid-19 was in the early days of the pandemic as safety measures were put in place globally, the urban crowd disappeared from the public domain. My paintings are depictions of people walking along the sidewalks and public walkways in the city and people were ordered to stay indoors except in necessary situations. As an artist, I was not one of the mandated types of workers who could work in this manner and even if I was, there was no one to photograph in my surroundings. Since the mandates have been dropped, my most recent excursions to capture the crowd have yielded very different results than the pre-pandemic urban scene. The crowds are fewer, less dense than before Covid-19.
Discuss one painting and how you have read the body language involved?
The body language in ‘On The Platform’ indicates the relationship between those in close proximity to each other while some are disconnected from the crowd engaged with their cellphone activity or simply watching for the next train. I find the consistency in the distance each person stands apart from one another of interest. If people took the opportunity to acknowledge one another or start a conversation, they would be close enough to do so. And yet there is no obligation to do so. There seems to be a kind of order in establishing an area of personal space and social norms that’s unspoken yet understood as a public crowd participant.
Why are there no actual faces in your work?
The paintings aim to reveal the identity of the crowd as a whole rather than expose the identity of the individual. The lack of faces in the figures is a move to place the emphasis on the gesture of the bodies and how they interact together in social spaces and situations. I photograph the people in the crowds and its my way of protecting their privacy as the project intends to illustrate a social portrait of urban society. The gestures emerging in the group reveal something about all of us and the community develops an evolution of social behaviours by seeing each other and being seen publicly.
Public Art at YKF
Sherry Czekus is a well-known Canadian artist famous for her lively urban scenes that capture city life. Her large canvases feature colorful figures that express movement and emotion. Perfect for homes and businesses, her art encourages viewers to connect with everyday stories, improving spaces while showcasing modern life and human experiences.
Three crowd scape paintings have been chosen and are now hanging in the departures lounge at Region of Waterloo International Airport until 2025 as part of the Waterloo Region Public Art program.
BLOCK PARTY
Wall Space Gallery is proud to present, “Block Party”, the latest solo-exhibition by painter Sherry Czekus. Her near colour-block approach and use of negative space in the portrayal of ‘crowdscapes’ breaks away from realistic representation into the tenuous tensions between colour and form. Czekus is ultimately fascinated with the organic fluctuations and movements within gatherings, and the moment when individual identity collapses into a larger collective presence.
Her aerial views of pedestrian motion break from her usual use of first-person perspective, instead placing us in the position of unseen observer floating above her scenes. In Look Up 1 and Look Up 2, this removal from the sense of being included in the crowd creates a calming space of separation, like standing still and feeling a river flowing around you. Though Czekus pares down her forms into blocks of colour, she maintains the subtle presence of the painted mark, and ultimately of her own hand, in the soft blends, transparencies, and directional brushwork that build or dissolve her figures. The works are deeply grounded in questions of painting and its ability to represent, in gesture, colour, and form, the bodily experience and pace of the urban ‘flaneur’.
BLOCK PARTY, June 13-26th
Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa
Godfrey Project, Detroit
A series of paintings featuring the urban crowd in Corktown has just arrived in Detroit to hang in a new development centered around the Godfrey Hotel.
King and Queen at The Walper Hotel, Kitchener, ON
To say I was honoured to paint this commissioned work for The Walper Hotel, in downtown Kitchener would be an understatement. Paula White Diamond Art Gallery, Waterloo, ON facilitated the project with the team at Perimeter Development. The painting is 120 x 60” and hangs in the Lounge in the hotel.