Biography

In my work I strive to: surprise myself. Keep interested and engaged. Provide an intelligent and absorbing task. Knowingly address history (both art history and history-history). Knowingly speak to artists. Seek the possibility of the stunning object/moment while having trouble believing in it. Have learned a voice and how to use it as a teacher and an artist.

Craig Stockwell (b. Cambridge, Mass. 1952) began his studies at Dartmouth College and Rhode Island School of Design. At RISD he studied with glass artist Dale Chihuly and went on to do work in glass in Minneapolis, Boulder, and Boston. His work moved on to conceptually based sculptural installations and was shown in New York, notably at PS 1 (MOMA). That particular installation was chosen from PS 1 and included in a show of Eight Sculptors (including Louise Bourgeois, Mark Di Suvero, Jackie Ferrara, Alan Saret, and et. al.) The New York work was widely reviewed including The New York Times, The Village Voice, Newsday, and The Soho News. After many years in New York, Stockwell moved to Spain with his young family in 1986. In 1988 they settled in New Hampshire where Stockwell made an intentional decision to confine his work to the restrictions of painting as a method of creating a sustainable daily practice. He received an MFA degree from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2000. 

Stockwell was awarded a Fellowship from the Sharpe-Walentas Space Program in Broooklyn for the years 2013-14. He has recently been represented by Gallery Benoit and Genovese/Sullivan in Boston. He has shown his drawings and paintings extensively in New England and nationally including the Nielsen Gallery in Boston, the Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arts, Marlboro College, New England College, The Fitchburg Museum, The Painting Center in NY, Spheris Gallery and TW Wood Gallery in Vermont and several other venues. His work is in many permanent private and public collections including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He was included in the 2003 exhibit at the Museum, “Visions and Revisions: Works on Paper 1960 to the Present,” curated by Clifford Ackley. He was a 2002 recipient of a New Hampshire Independent Artists Grant. He was included in the 2016 Biennial at the DeCordova Museum.

Stockwell lives in Keene, New Hampshire. He has taught at Keene State College, Marlboro College, Union Institute and University, and Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA). From 2013-20 he was the Director of the Visual Arts Program at the low-residency MFA at NH Institute for Arts. Currently he teaches in the MFA programs at Lesley University and MassArt.