Chuck Scalin

 

Chuck Scalin is a professor emeritus and former assistant chair of the Communication Arts + Design Department at Virginia Commonwealth University. He received a BFA degree from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois and an MFA degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Scalin is a professional artist and regularly teaches courses in collage and assemblage at the Studio School in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia.

 

Scalin works in a variety of mediums including photography, glass, assemblage, and collage. He has been recognized in over 250 exhibitions, including 25 solo shows in the US and abroad, and his work has been purchased for many public and private collections.

 

Scalin was awarded seven, two-month residencies at the Cité International des Arts in Paris, France. During these residencies, he worked on a continuing photographic project, Unsung View of Paris, consisting of obscure, mostly unnoticed fragments of the Parisian cityscape. From this activity, he created a suite of thirty 30 x 22 inch scale photographic prints, documenting details that were often just a few inches of concrete or painted surface. When enlarged, these abstract images dramatically transcend their ordinary origins. This body of work was exhibited in solo exhibitions both in Paris and Richmond.

 

In his most recent collaborative project, Scalin created a limited edition Book Art piece Body of Evidence: 14 unsolved mysteries, which was based on a series of assemblages created for a 2012 solo exhibition. As the producer of this project, Scalin collaborated with 21 people, including 15 authors, who contributed their narratives based on the contents of the clues found in these evidence boxes. Images of the original exhibition assemblages and the Book Art project can be viewed on his website.