Known as a painter of landscapes and for his striking use of color and shapes, renowned artist Stuart Shils will be teaching a workshop entitled The Perceptual Moment at Castle Hill from Friday, September 18 through Sunday, September 20, 2015.

As part of the workshop curriculum, Mr. Shils will present a ninety minute slide show on Thursday, September 17, 2015 from 6-8pm, presenting paintings and drawings made by past and modern masters, to lay out a foundation of visual themes during the course of the workshop.

With a focus on the importance of color, composition, mood, structure and visual perception, Mr. Shils will discuss how, via graphic organization, we look and make sense of construction, paint and drawing language, and how different artists have used the processes of working outside (both directly and in the studio) to achieve visual unity in their responses. Critic Maureen Mullarkey has stated, "Mr. Shills reveals himself as a poet of atmosphere."

The lecture is free for Castle Hill Members and $10 for Non-Members. However, it should be noted that this lecture is mandatory for those who are taking the workshop (which is completely filled), as it will be impossible to go over the same ground the following day. 

Born in Philadelphia in 1954, Mr. Shils has painted outside for more than 30 years. He studied at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with Seymour Remenick and at the Philadelphia College of Art.

Mr. Shils is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Ballinglen Arts Foundation Fellowship for Residency in Ballycastle, Ireland, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been presented in solo shows in New York, Philadelphia, Tel Aviv, Boston, Scottsdale, Richmond, San Francisco and Cork (Ireland).  Critical review and commentary has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Sun, Ha'aretz, The Jerusalem Post, Art Critical.com, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Irish Times, Art in America, The New Republic, The New Criterion, Art New England, American Artist, The Hudson Review and The Philadelphia Daily News.

Mr. Shils is an annual visiting critic at the Vermont Studio Center and a weekly critic at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) where he also teaches painting and drawing. In addition to teaching the master class for the Jerusalem Studio School in Italy and Jerusalem, Mr. Shils spent 13 summers painting on the northwest coast of Ireland, an extended painting campaign described in the PBS film documentary, “Ballycastle,” which won numerous awards, including First Place for Documentary Excellence, Society for Professional Journalists.

His paintings are represented by Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects in New York, Davis and Langdale, New York and Rothschild Fine Art in Tel Aviv.