Jarod Charzewski’s sculptural installation Knox Mountain - Rearranged used discarded clothing from local second-hand stores. Sculpting with the colours and textures of post-consumer textiles, he built geological forms to create the appearance of sedimentary rock. Local residents might’ve found their old pants or jackets transformed into an organic landscape reflecting the cultural values of our consumer-driven society. 

Working outside the gallery, Charzewski transported one of his sculptures throughout the city on the back of a trailer. These new outcroppings appeared within the city, challenging individuals to consider their own consumer habits. Like sedimentary rock, these ways of being can also be transformed over time and with pressure, often into unexpected forms.

Charzewski’s work is influenced by his experience growing up in the inner city of Winnipeg and summers spent in rural Manitoba. In his art, the geology and changing ephemeral qualities of light and climate of the Canadian prairies is moulded within a critical urban awareness. 

Jarod Charzewski grew up in the inner city of Winnipeg where the attitudes and esthetics of an urban setting tookhold. He also spent time on a family farm in rural Manitoba. This combination of surroundings is where he gained appreciation for natural and manufactured landscapes. He fuels his art with visuals of change; landscapes and recreates aesthetics that investigate mankind's evolving influence. Artistically he uses these sensations to release ethereality in site-specific experiences.

Charzewski holds a BFA from the University of Manitoba (1996) and an MFA from the University of Minnesota (2005). He has received artist grants from several US and Canadian arts organizations including the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts and received a Puffin Award for the environmental content of his work. He has exhibited across the US and Canada including such venues as the Grand Canyon National Park site specific installation, Le Biennale de Montréal in Montreal Quebec, the Bunnell Arts Center in Homer Alaska. In addition, in Spring of 2018 he had a mid career retrospective at the Begovich Gallery at the University of Southern California, Fullerton. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina

For more information about Charzewski’s work, visit his website.