Perfect Spiderman art show at New Hampton School

NEW HAMPTON — Perfect Spiderman by Charlie Smith, a member of the New Hampton School visual arts faculty, will be on display in the Galletly Gallery through Dec. 18. The show will feature ceramic sculptured works made with a combination of hand-building and wheel-throwing techniques. The works examine themes through an autobiographical narrative of the artist’s life. Perfect Spiderman is about reflection, self-discovery, personal history, and deconstructing the past to better understand the present. 

Perfect Spiderman borrows its title from a quote by Jean-Michel Basquiat. In an art competition he entered as a child, Basquiat came in second place to a boy who had “drawn a perfect Spiderman.” Basquiat came to realize that, despite striving for perfection, his work did not need to be “perfect,” but more importantly true to himself. Spiderman also serves as a metaphor for projections shown to the world while hiding a true identity. 

Smith studied ceramics at Skidmore College and The Glasgow School of Art, and has shown his ceramic and mixed media work at galleries in New York, Mass., Conn., New Hampshire, and Glasgow. He has taught art at summer programs at Hotchkiss School, Deerfield Academy, and Cardigan Mountain School, and is in his sixth year of teaching at New Hampton School.

The exhibit is free and open to the public. The Galletly Gallery is on the second floor of New Hampton School’s Moore Center. The gallery is open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m., and Saturdays, 9 a.m.-noon. The gallery is closed during school break from Nov. 23-30.

For more information about New Hampton School, visit www.newhampton.org.