Charles LeDray

Lecture: Monday, May 3

Charles LeDray was born in Seattle, Washington and currently lives and works in New York City. He is largely a self-taught artist and learned to sew from his mother when he was four. His pieces are made of fabric, wire, wood and bone and incorporate crafts that are typically considered “women’s work.” His work is far from precious; catching masculine and feminine elements in meaningful contradictions, they hint at extreme solitude and even pain. Charles LeDray is known for making miniature men's suits that are marvels of meticulous craftsmanship and poetic symbols of male identity. Other works include a pair of big glass display cases containing thousands of tiny handmade ceramic pots, each differently formed and glazed; a matchbox-size, leather-bound sketch book and slip cover, the little book open to show a drawing of a bee hive; and an antique ''Cricket Cage'' reproduced in human bone, a commercially available material. ''Jewelry Display,'' an assemblage of empty armatures for necklaces, bracelets and watches on boxes of different heights, all covered in black velvet, has the haunted air of a graveyard.

Charles LeDray is an internationally acclaimed artist and has exhibited extensively, including most recently, “Charles LeDray,” Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York, NY; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Seattle Art Museum and Galerie Dusseldorf. He has artworks in numerous public collections including The Whitney Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Denver Art Museum.