Artist-in-Residence
Cheselyn Amato
Charleston, SC | Fall 2024
Cheselyn Amato (b. 1958) is an interdisciplinary visual artist, spoken text/sound performer, and space/place maker. Amato orchestrates an array of visual props, colored light phenomena, video projection, and/or choreographies of gesture and movement to foster spiritually-imbued circumstances, creating environments for experiencing sublimity, awe, wonder, and delight. Her vision emerges from an ecstatic spiritual awareness of the magnificent oneness of All-That-Is, in service to tikkun olam (”healing the world),” her work seeks to bolster courage and resilience to uncertainty, imbalance, adversity, injustice, and suffering in the world.
During her Fall 2024 residency in Charleston, Cheselyn Amato created a new iteration of colored light efflux sculptures as well as engaged the larger community through a performative enactment at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim synagogue.
Artist Bio
Cheselyn Amato, originating in New Jersey, lives and works in San Rafael, California. She earned her BA in Studio Art and Comparative Religious Studies at Brown University, an MFA in Drawing, Painting, and New Genres at Tyler School of Art of Temple University, and a Master of Theological Studies at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, specializing in Interfaith Chaplaincy, Art and Spirituality, and Justice and Social Transformation. She spent nearly 20 years teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to California, where she has taught at Davis and San Rafael for over 15 years.
Cheselyn Amato’s work has been exhibited at The Jewish Museum in New York, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, and Spertus Institute of Judaica in Chicago, with works in the permanent collections. She participated in the Jerusalem Biennale in Israel (2015 and 2021) and has contributed work to interfaith group exhibitions, including most recently in 2023, “Genesis: The Beginning of Creativity,” integrating work by artists identifying with the Abrahamic religions, organized by the Jewish Art Salon. Amato’s work reflects and chronicles her lifelong spiritual, aesthetic, and humanitarian journey. She serves as a hospice chaplain and visual art doula for personal, social, societal, and global transformation.
Select Images
Cheselyn Amato, "FSA Open Studio," 2024. Radiant film, wire, and light.
Julie Hamilton, Cheselyn Amato, and Tyler Rollins at the FSA Inspired Garden Party + Open Studios, 2024.
Leeza Ahmady, Keller Hollingsworth, Jennifer Wen Ma, and Cheselyn Amato at KKBE Synagogue in Charleston, October 2024.
Cheselyn Amato, “Ner Tamid/Eternal Light,” 2022.
Cheselyn Amato, “Calling Forth the Divine | Shekinah: Indwelling Presence Amongst Us,” 2017.
Cheselyn Amato, "Holy of Holies (Blue with 32 Pathes)," 2000.
Cheselyn Amato, "Temple Lights Shekinah Amongst Us Changing the Arrangement of Stars Radiant," 2013. Film, wire, silhouette and light.
Cheselyn Amato, "Uncontrollable Beauty," 2016.
Cheselyn Amato, “Priestess-Shepherdess-Doula for Tikkum Olam Healing and Transformation of the World,” 2012-2024..
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