Charles Searles

While studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1972, Charles Searles won a fellowship to visit Ghana, Nigeria and Morocco. Al Smith's trip to Africa strongly influenced Searles' use of color and pattern as well as forms inspired by African sculpture and dance.

After the painful loss of his daughter, which in part inspired his African trip, the social and political critiques in Searles' earlier work gave way to a new, more abstract direction. Since 1978, Searles has worked exclusively in sculpture. Characterized by bright colors and complex patterning, his curvilinear, sometimes biomorphic, forms seem to dance to their own music or take flight of their own volition.

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