June 2011 Featured Artist: Charlotte "Charlee" Shroyer

Charlotte 'Charlee' Shroyer has been named first place winner in the 2011 Top Ten International Women in the Arts competition sponsored by ARTROM Gallery, Rome, Italy, a competition with entrants from more than 20 countries. Her widely collected abstracts and paintings of women of the ages in the awe-inspiring architecture of Europe are featured in the exhibit.

Growing up in a family where neither parent loved art nor encouraged her in art did little to prepare Shroyer for an art career. My parents were busy struggling for survival and searching for a better life. They had no time for muses or artists. Nor did a small rural school where coloring within the lines was the norm prepare her. As a child a church field trip to the Columbus Museum of Art where she saw the work of George Bellows planted the seeds of an artist in my subconscious but it would be many years before they would germinate, Shroyer recollects. The trip was forgotten until 50 years later.

Shroyerís journey into the art world was even more unlikely given her early formal college education resulting in a B.A. in French from The Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in special education, language and learning disorders from the University of Pittsburgh. Only when a requirement for an elementary education art methods course took her to the Park of Roses, north of the Ohio State campus, did she paint for the first time. Just one swish of color on paper, and the magic beganñìI can still remember that day.

Art courses at the University of California, Berkeley and Riverside, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Maryland
and many other stops along the way were only a part of her art education. Twenty years of life in California helped sweeten the pot. Today she paints in Taos, New Mexico, and around the world.

Shroyer has also written professionally as editor and writer for Taos Today, a walking guide to the art of Taos, New Mexico, and as an art columnist for The Sierra Sage, Carson City, Nevada. Her essay entitled ìYarns of the Soul published in abqARTS was awarded the Best Feature Award in the San Francisco Honorary Publications competition for newspapers with circulation 50,000 and under. She is currently working on a book.

The online exhibit of Shroyer's work may be seen at www.ARTROMgallery.com.

Shroyer's work is collected nationally and internationally and she
exhibits at Open Space Gallery and Blumenschein Studio Gallery in Taos, New Mexico; Lone Tree Gallery, Minden, Nevada; The Beck Gallery, Lutz, Florida; and on her own web site www.charlotteshroyer.com .

VIEW CHARLEE'S WORK


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