Cheryl Levin

ABOUT

Cheryl Levin is an artist presently working in ink and other media on paper. Her work can be seen at The Somerville Manning Gallery in Greenville, Delaware on an on-going basis, in various group shows across the country and in other member arts organizations she is part of. See links page.

Levin holds a BFA from Tyler School of Art, both at the original Elkins Park, PA, USA location and Tyler’s Abroad Program in Rome,Italy. She attended The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA for a brief period and at The Frudakis Academy in Philadelphia she studied under sculptors Zenos Frudakis.

As a long standing member of the now defunct High Wire Artist Co-operative in Philadelphia, Levin was represented by the Owen Patrick Gallery, Philadelphia, PA for over 20 years. Exhibiting in group shows in the Philadelphia region, across the country and abroad including The Brandenberg Museum of Modern Art, Cobbus, Germany, MOCA Westport, Conn., Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, NJ, Loft’s at Liz’s Gallery, Los Angeles, CA and Site:Brooklyn, and One Art Space, New York, Levin is part of private collections in the US and abroad including Deventer, Holland and London, England. Her most recent solo show, titled Conversations with Repetition, was held at DVAA, Philadelphia, PA and featured her line drawings shown in unusual formats. Click here to see the show: https://davinciartalliance.org/correspondence-with-repetition

A recipient of the Ester and Adolf Gottlieb Foundation Arts Grant, New York City, NY and The Artist Fellowship Arts Grant, New York City, NY, Levin was awarded a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont in 2023 and attended another residency at The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, Virginia in April 2024.

Levin was included in an exhibition which showed original works by Lee Kranser, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Elaine DeKooning and Grace Hartigan titled Ninth Street Women and Their Legacy at the Somerville Manning Gallery in Greenville, Delaware, where her works are available. Click here to see the exhibition: https://somervillemanning.com/exhibitions/9th-street-women-and-their-legacy/

While partnered with her late husband, metal sculptor Robert Phillips, (February 24, 1962 - September 9, 2012), at their Phillips Metal Studio, Levin often collaborated with Phillips on public art projects for the City of Philadelphia as well as other public and private commissions across the country. One such example is Metamorphosis - Girard Crossing Public Arts Project located in Philadelphia at 30th and Girard Aves. in Philadelphia on which Levin painted Phillips' monumental metal sculptures with glazes and speciality paints. Levin also created a set of mosaics, placed at the site, with community teens in conjunction with The Mural Arts Agency of Philadelphia. Click here to see: https://publicartarchive.org/art/Metamorphosis/9e1547bf

Phillips and Levin were married in 1993 when they shared a studio in their home in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia. There they produced, with musicians Val Opielski and Dan Malamed, a live marionette puppet show set to music. Called The Catapult Marionette Theater, the group produced a Greek tragedy which was staged in the then transformed Phillip’s and Levin’s home studio, and at Group Motion Theater in Philadelphia. The show featured fully operational copper marionettes fabricated by Phillips from discarded downspouts and were sewn together with copper wire, (the eyes even blinked). Levin and Phillips were both puppeteers and narrators of the shows.

Levin presently works to facilitate the legacy of Robert Phillips and Phillips Metal by preserving a body of work which includes hundreds of working drawings, sculptures, such as the Marionettes and other metal works. She continues to maintain the building of Robert Phillips' former studio and it's currently the work shop of New York metal worker Ashley Stevenson of AWS Fabrication and Design and houses The Metal Shop Recording Studio as well. Click under the Bob Phillips Gallery in the menu to see works of Bob Phillips from his studio.

After years of producing representational pictures dealing with themes of woman's identity and gender roles, Levin’s shift to abstraction in 2005 stemmed from a need for a broader format for expression. Her themes use line to delineate shapes that refer to compartments in her life, crossroads of thought and action, and life journeys.

“My present work stems from a need to use repetition of line in a minimalist fashion to bind myself to the creative process. The shapes I use were salvaged from my late husbands metal working studio and since recovering them I consider my work to be eulogistic in nature. The desire to form an identity, so to speak - of a fingerprint of a shape - making the identity of a shape - which holds deep meaning - each line revealing it's own shape path, connotes a life force isolated in it's own being, yet connected by it's simplicity of creation - that being line - my choice of experimentation.”

Levin lives and works in Bala Cynwyd, PA. Her two adult children are both engineers living in West Chester, PA and Boston, Mass.