Charles Goss
Charles Goss grew up in the Boston area. He is a working artist and has been teaching at SMFA for more than 30 years. He received his BFA from University of Colorado and his MFA at SMFA at Tufts. He was trained in sculpture but quickly branched to many other forms of expression and media, and developed this approach teaching at the school. From 3-D to photography, drawing and painting to installation, book-making to film-making, performance to sound, Charles has embraced the cross-discipline nature of this institution in his work and teaching. He has taught all levels of students and is currently teaching painting and drawing. His classes are about skill-building and idea generation, with a healthy investigation into personal content and critical discourse.
He expects his students: to ask questions, question the answers, exercise curiosity, test boundaries, trust the unknown, think for themselves and visually express those thoughts with care and skill.
He has had five European solo shows in Hull, Great Britain, Berlin, Germany and three in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has also exhibited in Boston, MA, Charlotte, NC and New York City.
Charles has also made two text and image books: 90 Days In Paris and Everything I Don't Know-Volume 2, both in the collection of the SMFA library. He is currently producing another book titled, Everything I don't Know-For Children.
I Focus on: Bumps on the wall, finding life in a box, your mothers Bauhaus, overworking the space, reading between the lines, learning my own rhythm, polyphonies in 11/4 time, holes in the wall, bumps in the road, misplaced modifiers, palatial space, doubling the exposure, eyesight and earshot, secrets discovered, secrets revealed, dotting the T and crossing the street, crossing my fingers, being clear about abstraction, daring to screw up, carnal knowledge, embracing the mistakes, never getting it all in one piece. .........selling out, catching up, falling behind, facing death, quietly waiting, action/reaction, response, NOT-HOLDING-BACK, that there is no time like the present and the present has no time at all, dysphasia, dyspepsia, truth to materials, true voices, desires, habits, addictions, worst headaches, no thinking-just doing, method painting, TV, the inside of your mouth, following the tryst, possessing the fear, doubting the doubt, questioning EVERYTHING, doing my best-whatever it may be that day, standing by my word, assuming nothing, not taking things personally, dog farts and back streets, the economy of clarity, the lushness of obscurity, the union of opposites, fantasy, curiosity, empty rooms, deprivation, boredom, logic, irony, humor, pain, joy, loss, pleasure, grief, suffering, history, ecstasy, action-spawning ideas-more action giving to more ideas, acceptance, rejection, the strength in weakness, camouflaging, mirroring, reverberating, technique taught…art sought, lust, pride, envy, jealousy, sloth, suspension of disbelief, living in time, finding the loading zone, late for lunch, alpha waves, delta waves, theta waves, baby waves, mama waves, talismans, fetishes, sports, food, cooking, learning, seeing.....density, a sense of the aggregate, baseball, evidence of life on other planets, TEXAS, a higher being, back of the bus, the Blues, the source of the Nile, Paris, money, politics, Jazz, sex, duct tape, basic instincts, rear seat speakers, dyslexia, half lives, Ohms Law, Mho's scale, absolute zero, no things, NOTHING, the truth about reality, the Venturi Effect, the image not the f-stop, where the rage lives, going to the out of my mind, too late to make a long story short, love, mind reading, true north, Band-Aids, critical thinking, sincere thought, no thought, boat drinks, the journey not the destination, the Caribbean, contradiction, oxymoron's, erasing the evidence and defacing the norm, continuity and embracing the chaos............NOW. Focus is subject to change and rearrangement without notice. CBG© 2019