Chawky Frenn

Last updated

Chawky Frenn
Born
Zahlé, Lebanon
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Artist, author, and art professor at george mason university
Known forFigurative painting, political artwork, art activism
Websitewww.chawkyfrenn.com

Chawky Frenn is a Lebanese-born American artist, author, and art professor. [1] [2] He currently teaches art at George Mason University in northern Virginia. [3] His highly realistic paintings have strong narrative social and political elements. [1] Frenn is a former Fulbright scholar, [4] [5] and currently resides in the Greater Washington, D.C. area.

Contents

Early life and education

Chawky Frenn was born in Zahlé, Lebanon. [3] Frenn immigrated to the United States in 1981 [3] and lived for several years in Boston, [6] where he studied art and received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design [7] in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1985 and completed his MFA at Tyler School of Art of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, [3] and at Temple Abroad in Rome, Italy, in 1988. [3]

He has taught art at Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Massachusetts; [2] Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts; [2] and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. [2] He is currently an associate professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, [3] where he received a Teaching Excellence Award in 2009. [8]

Exhibitions

Frenn has exhibited widely [3] in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, [2] [9] and his work has been widely reviewed by major newspapers [10] [11] and significant art critics. [10] [11] His work has been exhibited at the Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts in New Castle, Pennsylvania; [3] Housatonic Museum of Art [12] in Bridgeport, Connecticut; Erie Art Museum in Erie, Pennsylvania; [3] Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, New York; [3] and the Sursock Museum [13] in Beirut, Lebanon.

Frenn's paintings are also in the permanent collection of The Housatonic Museum of Art in Bridgeport, Connecticut [14] and the Springfield Museum of Art in Springfield, Ohio. [15]

Solo exhibitions

Museum exhibitions and international art fairs

Books

Frenn is the author of the following books [3] [43]

Reviews

A New York Times review in 2001 described him as "a painter who has nailed down the figurative mode, and this accomplishment gives him the license to convey anything he wants, including the grand theme: the elusive meaning of human existence.” [11]

A Washington Post review in 2004 added that Frenn is "an artist's artist (as opposed to a critic's artist)." [10] In that same year, in discussing an exhibition of Frenn's works at Darmouth The Lebanon Daily Star newspaper noted that "you might think it would take a lot to upstage an artist like Damien Hirst, but earlier this year Chawky Frenn did so with ease." [46]

American art critic Donald Kuspit wrote that "He constructs a spiritual space in which the contemporary public can feel emotionally at home, however troubling the emotions his imagery evokes in them."

Washington Life Magazine described Frenn in 2009 as an "influential metro area visual artist." [47]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Bone Structures". Washington City Paper. September 10, 2004. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Oweis, Fayed (2008). Encyclopedia of Arab American Artists. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN   978-0-313-33730-7.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 "Chawky Frenn | The School of Art". soa.gmu.edu. Archived from the original on February 17, 2019. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  4. ↑ "Fulbright Scholar Program". Fulbright Scholar Program. August 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Through Fulbright scholarship, Mason professor shared his passion for life, art | George Mason". www2.gmu.edu. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  6. ↑ Smee, Sebastian (July 3, 2014). "Concord explores 'Sight Specific'". The Boston Globe.
  7. ↑ "View Content". www.alumni.massart.edu. Retrieved January 19, 2019.[ permanent dead link ]
  8. ↑ "Alumni Success". MassArt. November 4, 2016. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  9. 1 2 "Cynthia Nouhra Art Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon". www.cnag.me. Archived from the original on March 2, 2019. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  10. 1 2 3 O'Sullivan, Michael (September 17, 2004). "The Real Deals". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 22, 2018.
  11. 1 2 3 Zimmer, William (July 8, 2001). "ART; Asking, and Answering, Some of the Big Questions". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved December 22, 2018.
  12. ↑ "HMA: Ecce Homo, Paintings by Chawky Frenn". www2.housatonic.edu. Archived from the original on March 3, 2019. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  13. ↑ "Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon" (PDF). Sursock Museum. 2019. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 2, 2019. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  14. ↑ "Discover the Artist Within". MACAM. July 26, 2016. Archived from the original on March 2, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  15. ↑ "Chawky Frenn". cvpa.gmu.edu. College of Visual and Performing Arts. Archived from the original on March 2, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Cynthia Nouhra Art Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon". www.cnag.me. Archived from the original on March 2, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  17. 1 2 "HMA: Ecce Homo, Paintings by Chawky Frenn". www2.housatonic.edu. Archived from the original on March 3, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  18. ↑ "Ecce Homo – Fine Arts Galleries". www.gmu.edu. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  19. ↑ "Ecce Homo: Chawky Frenn – Art as philosophy | The Nietzsche News Center". nietzsche-news.org. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  20. ↑ "New Castle exhibit seeks to 'Behold the Man'". old.post-gazette.com. Archived from the original on March 2, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  21. ↑ "The Santa Fe New Mexican from Santa Fe, New Mexico on June 14, 2002 · Page 65". Newspapers.com. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  22. ↑ "Fraser Gallery – Our 2002 Bethesda, Maryland shows". www.thefrasergallery.com. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  23. ↑ "Fraser Gallery – Our 2004 Bethesda, Maryland shows". www.thefrasergallery.com. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  24. ↑ "Archived copy". www.dailystar.com.lb. Archived from the original on January 4, 2020. Retrieved February 16, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  25. ↑ "District Community Events Jan. 20–27, 2005". The Washington Post.
  26. ↑ "Fraser Gallery – Our 2006 Bethesda, Maryland shows". www.thefrasergallery.com. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  27. ↑ "Professor Frenn to Speak on Art and Social Justice | George Mason". www2.gmu.edu. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  28. ↑ "Exhibit: 'Be the Change You Seek!'". Germantown, MD Patch. January 25, 2012. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  29. ↑ "Artist Chawky Frenn Lectures at BlackRock". Germantown, MD Patch. January 26, 2012. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  30. ↑ "Past Exhibits". BlackRock Center for the Arts. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  31. ↑ "Chawky Frenn's "We The People" at The Hess Gallery". artscopemagazine.com. October 21, 2013. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  32. ↑ "Hess Gallery – New Exhibit". Pine Manor College. Archived from the original on April 28, 2015. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  33. ↑ "We the People in Nesto Gallery". Milton Academy. March 29, 2014.
  34. ↑ Ruxanda Renita '14. "Slow Painting: The Deliberate Renaissance". OUMA. Retrieved February 16, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  35. ↑ Huschle, Claire (2007). Imaging the distance: Aachen to Arlington – Arlington to Aachen. Arlington Arts Center. ISBN   978-3929292442. OCLC   752068528.
  36. ↑ Walsh, Enda (2016). "Arlington". doi:10.5040/9781784603625.00000002. ISBN   9781784603625.{{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  37. ↑ "One Fine Art | artists – painters / Chawky Frenn".
  38. ↑ Barrett, Maggie (April 1, 2010). "First Comprehensive Exhibition of Postwar Lebanese Art at AU Museum | American University Washington DC". American University. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  39. ↑ Convergence: New Art from Lebanon | WETA Around Town, archived from the original on January 4, 2020, retrieved February 16, 2019
  40. ↑ "Boston painter George Nick celebrated by his students and peers". New England Today. May 23, 2012. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  41. ↑ "Radius 250 2019". Shaylen Amanda Broughton. Retrieved March 17, 2019.[ permanent dead link ]
  42. ↑ "Mason School of Art | INSIDE OUTSIDE, UPSIDE DOWN" . Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  43. ↑ Giuliano, Charles (September 16, 2013). "100 Boston Artists by Chawky Frenn: New Book Follows 100 Boston Painters" . Retrieved December 22, 2018.
  44. ↑ "Books in French Focusing on Middle Eastern Topics: The Arabian Gulf, UAE, Saudi, Qatar, Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Oman and more". www.lebanesebooks.com. Archived from the original on January 4, 2020. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  45. ↑ "Ecce Homo: Chawky Frenn – Art as philosophy | The Nietzsche News Center". nietzsche-news.org. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  46. ↑ Wilson-Goldie, Kaelen (December 23, 2004). "Welcome to the doll's house: Don't mind the skulls". The Daly Star Lebanon. Archived from the original on February 17, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  47. ↑ "The Creative List: Visual Arts". Washington Life Magazine. November 10, 2009. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
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