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Charles Levi

@charleslevi

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5’10 vs 7’10
The 2026 NSW Visual Art Fellowship (Emerging) @artspacesydney @creatensw is coming to a close soon.

Thank you to everyone who has visited and engaged with the exhibition during its run. There is under a week left, so go see it before it departs 🕳️

Image by Anna Kucera taken in Artspace Sydney by @charleslevi

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a month ago

Q Pose, 2025, ‘performing’ and casting shadows at @artspacesydney as part of the 2026 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) @creatensw.

Exhibition continues until August 30th

Images: Hamish McIntosh taken in Artspace Sydney by @charleslevi

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2 months ago

Installation view of my presentation in the 2026 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) @artspacesydney in partnership with @creatensw.

L-R: Q Pose (2025) and Cinaedus Galbinatus (2026)

Swipe for the accompanying text which provides some insight into the intentionally ‘opaque’ titles, the ideas surrounding the works and their function as thematic companions.

Behind the scenes, my practice is in a constant state of flux, moving between past and present, concealment and spectacle, ornament and functionality. When planning new work, I often find myself instinctively collapsing these seemingly disparate worlds into one. So marrying an ancient Greco-Roman insult with a nineteenth-century visual military code felt only natural.

“One figure appears poised and exultant, while the other folds inward, evoking vulnerability and introspection. Together, they foreground the affective capacity of textiles and the role of hand labour in queer history-making.”

Images: (1) Anna Kucera & (2) Hamish McIntosh taken in Artspace Sydney by @charleslevi

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2 months ago

The 2026 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) exhibtion is open now @artspacesydney in partnership with @creatensw

I’ve produced a new large-scale work for the exhibition which is pictured here.

Very honoured to be exhibiting alongside fellow 2026 VAFE artists: @virginia_keft @milskelton @tia_madden @suejowright @caitlin_dubler @natashadubler

Images 1, 2 & 3: Hamish Mcintosh

Cinaedus Galbinatus, 2026, textile appliqué and manual embroidery, 240 x 150cm (approx.) taken in Artspace Sydney by @charleslevi

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3 months ago

It is a thrill and an honour to be one of the finalists for the 2026 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) supported by @artspacesydney and @creatensw

Portrait by Bowen Aricò @bowenarico

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📣Artspace and Create NSW are excited to
announce the 2026 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) finalists this year are @virginia_keft, @charleslevi, @tia_madden, Amelia Skelton (@milskelton), @suejowright and collaborative duo @natashadubler and @caitlin_dubler.

The NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging), valued at $30,000, is offered by the NSW Government through Create NSW in partnership with Artspace to enable an early career artist to undertake a self-directed program of professional development.

The seven finalists will be participating in an exhibition that will open at Artspace in July 2026, with the Fellowship recipient to be announced at the official exhibition launch. by @charleslevi

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8 months ago

Hello,
This grand new work is on show @gosfordgallery as apart of Emerging 2025.

Here is a smidge of info about it:

Q Pose, 2025, is a textile work shaped by archives of lavish queer costume and theatrical display. The figure’s embroidered limbs are suspended in a dance-like stasis, signalling the letter “Q” in semaphore, a 19th-century system of non-verbal communication using arm and flag positions to represent letters, merging exuberance with coded expression while drawing on histories of concealment and spectacle alike.

It is nice to be placed within a ensemble of emerging talents - a true visual feast. Thank you @gosfordgallery @michaelmcintyrestudio @wolfewisecreative

Go look. taken in Gosford Regional Gallery and Edogawa Commemorative Garden by @charleslevi

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a year ago

It’s a real honour to have my work Maker hanging as a finalist in the 2025 Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award @wangarattaartgallery

Participating in this prestigious award has been a quiet ambition of mine for some time, so to be selected from over 430 entries nationwide feels like both, a significant milestone and a true affirmation.

Sincere thanks to @sepidehfarzam @katymitchellceramics and @rachelearndt for selecting Maker and for the opportunity to be in suspended alongside nine other gr8 textile-based artists.

As the catalogue notes, Maker “sits at the nexus of emotionality, activism and queer labour… its ambiguity belying a radical queerness posited with acerbic political intent.”

The exhibition runs until August 17.

Images by: Jeremy Weihrauch - scroll through taken in Wangaratta Art Gallery by @charleslevi

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a year ago

There is one more week to see The Devoted Eye before it closes on February 8th
@amesyavuz

Thank you again to Rose @rose_d_hannan and Owen @owen_craven for curating a marvellous show.

Final days are upon us, so go forth and see it if you haven’t yet.

Images by Felipe Olivares Barreto taken in Ames Yavuz Sydney by @charleslevi

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2 years ago

Hello, I have two new works showing in a group exhibition @amesyavuz Commonwealth St Gallery.
The opening reception is tomorrow, Saturday the 18th of January from 3-5pm and continues until February 8th.

The Devoted Eye is both obscured and revealed by shifting shadows lacquered in paint, gentle contemplations on stitched edges, and glimpses of limbs that twist themselves in charcoal, ceramic, and embroidery. Celebrating the work of Karen Black, Jennifer Brady, Solomon Kammer, Deborah Kelly, Charles Levi, Shannon McCulloch, Riley Payne, Todd Robinson, and Elle Wickens, The Devoted Eye examines intersections of identity, language, textiles, and the figure.

I have always intended to have periodic stints in working smaller and shrinking the scale of my work. Contrary to what is probably thought - it does not induce a simpler or quicker mode of making, rather, your attention to every detail, down to the individual frays, is intensified to the nth degree. I think this level of detail and pedantry ties in nicely with the title of the show - The Devoted Eye.

The titles of the works are In-vest and Turn-coat. I wanted to find words that did more than one thing, connecting etymologically with the history of textile wear while relating suggestively to the current politics and practice of textiles. To invest originally meant ‘to clothe with authority’, and a turncoat was one who hid their allegiances by turning their coat inside out. I felt these unnoticed textile histories with their political undertones covertly woven into the words tied in nicely with the similarly coded / unspoken aspects of my practice.

Scroll through for embroidery details

Thanks for reading haha

Come and enjoy tomorrow afternoon

#charleslevi taken in Ames Yavuz Sydney by @charleslevi

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2 years ago

Hello, this is an artist portrait I had taken earlier this year. I look quite stern. It was never a conscious decision to appear faceless or anonymous on this platform, simply put, I don’t have my photo taken that much lately - old friends and acquaintances will understand the humorous irony of this. I suppose it’s nice to put a face to the work. by @charleslevi

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2 years ago

Hello again, It’s the last week of the 2024 Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship finalist exhibition @sca_sydney go have a look before it closes on the 2nd of November.

When I was ruminating over these works in the long drawing phase; before the actual construction began, I was looking through a lot of archival images from 1910-1940ish, provided to me by the Embroiderers Guild in Aylesbury. I thought I’d share a few notable references for the work on the left titled Quad.
- The interior of SS France (1910)
- Ozark Quilts from 1920s Arkansas
- Embroidered kneelers from Winchester Catherdral mid 1930s

Images by @jessica_maurer_photography taken in Old Teachers College by @charleslevi

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2 years ago

Hello, I have two new (largish) works in The Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship finalist exhibition.
It is open now and showing until November 2nd @sca_sydney - have a gander.

Special thanks to @liam_garstang & @emma__oneill

Scroll through for hand embroidery details and info on the work/s.

The Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarships support Sydney College of Arts (SCA) graduates to pursue a program of professional development through travel.
The scholarships are open to all SCA alumni across two categories: a $10,000 Emerging Scholarship and a $30,000 Mid-career/Established Scholarship. taken in Old Teachers College by @charleslevi

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2 years ago