Defying gravity. Sculpting lines. Making the flat surface dimensional.
These are characteristics found in this recent series of silverpoint drawings on white gesso by local artist, educator, art critic, and cultural visionary Charles Zuill, PhD.
This investigation began while Charles was a graduate student at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the 1960s. He says, “I began a series of paintings based on the grey scale and I continued that series for the next 20 years. Then, in 1989, I branched into another direction, investigating natural forces utilising natural materials, such as sand and soil. It may seem that the 1989 shift was a radical departure from my earlier greyscale investigations, but appearances can be deceptive; it was a continuation of my use of gradients from light to dark.
In my research on light/dark gradients, I read the Elements of Drawing, by the nineteenth-century, English art critic and art theorist, John Ruskin, in which he stated that he could make mud glow, if he were allowed to gradate it. That was a challenge I had to try. So, using Bermuda paleosol, or fossil soil, I began working in that direction, only to return to my earlier interests in tonal gradients, as with metal point and silverpoint drawings in 2020.
As a result of my teaching art history over many years, I had developed an interest in historic materials, such as encaustic and metal point drawings. With the Covid epidemic and lockdown, plus the forced relinquishing of my St. George’s studio, I used the time at home to explore and investigate the use of metal point as a drawing material.”

📍 The Rick Faries Gallery, Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art
🗓 September 12 – November 4, 2025
Exhibition curated by Lisa Howie.