Bart Walter - Soul of Africa
Presented March 23 through July 21, 2002

Sponsored by
The Herbert W. Hoover Foundation
KeyBank
Dominion East Ohio

The works of American sculptor Bart Walter will be featured at the Canton Museum of Art beginning March 23, 2002. Bart Walter: Soul of Africa will highlight over twenty-five works including small sculptures created in the wild, a series of charcoal sketches that the artist uses for reference, and life-size bronze sculptures of African wildlife. This range of work will bring Walter’s entire creative process into focus in the Museum's galleries. The exhibit will run through July 21, 2002.

"Ishmael" by Bart Walter
Bart Walter states that his "art evolves from a passion for all living things. I strive to capture the essence of a living being; to explore some kernel of truth that may have gone unnoticed and to depict an otherwise elusive moment in time."

With a studio in Maryland as a home base, Bart Walter spends considerable time living and traveling abroad in order to observe his subjects in the wild. He continues to explore various regions of Africa in an effort to reveal the soul of Africa through an artist's eye. With this exhibition, Bart Walter offers an insight into the creative process and gives the audience the means to find personal connections to parts of the natural world we may never see. "I strip away all that is unnecessary, even as I build the sculpture with layer upon layer of clay. My goal is a distillation of the subject until only true essentials are left. If in so doing I can reveal some intangible spirit, make evident the soul of my subject, and communicate this in my art then I have accomplished something real."

Bart Walter's insightful work has found the approval and support of many noted researchers, including the famed primatologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall. Dr. Goodall recently completed an American lecture tour that included Bart Walter's sculpture "The Gathering", a group of seven life-size bronze chimpanzees that Bart created to recognize her groundbreaking research with wild chimps in Gombe, Tanzania. This multiple figure piece will be a featured aspect of the exhibition.