CLS: Good Times

LOCATION: Alto Gallery - 1900 35th St, Suite B

CATEGORIES: Art Events | Art Events

UPCOMING DATE AND TIME:

• Fri, Dec 5, 2025 - Sat, Jan 3, 2026  

Join us at Alto Gallery on Friday, December 5, 6 - 10PM for the opening reception of Good Times, a solo exhibition featuring reclaimed works from international street artist Charles L. Schriver a.k.a. CLS. Free event and refreshments. Open to the public.

ABOUT

Good Times traces the evolving life of a work once set loose in the world — and the act of bringing it back.

The exhibition began with a single gesture: in 2022, I installed a temporary piece on the boarded façade of a defunct Good Times restaurant in Denver. Three years later, I reclaimed what remained. That process — of retrieving, reframing, and transforming — has since become an ongoing method in my practice.

This current body of work extends that cycle. Each piece incorporates material reclaimed from prior site-specific installations — fragments weathered by time, light, and circumstance. Paint, plywood, fasteners, and surface scars carry the memory of other moments and other places. They are not artifacts of loss, but evidence of return: works remade through the friction of history and revision.

Alongside these reclaimed wall works stand a series of freestanding sculptures constructed from the ends of salvaged wine crates, painted in matte black. These objects operate as counterpoints — closed, formal, and silent — where the wall pieces remain open, layered, and narrative.

Together, the two bodies of work consider cycles of intervention and entropy, the shifting line between decay and renewal, and the act of reclaiming one’s own gestures after time has done its work. Good Times asks what persists — in wood, in paint, and in the traces of making itself.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I create sculptural street art that transforms overlooked urban spaces into evolving, living compositions. My work is rooted in Bauhaus and De Stijl principles, blending structure, abstraction, and function into three-dimensional relief murals. Using locally sourced wood, I construct layered forms that integrate into the environment, giving discarded materials new life. Once installed, the artwork is no longer mine - it belongs to the cit, the elements, and the people who interact with it.

My pieces reflect the movement and rhythm of the streets they inhabit. Over time, they weather, decay, or become altered - painted over, tagged, or even demolished. I welcome this transformation. Art, like life, is impermanent, and the beauty lies in its continuous evolution. Though my work is most visible in Chicago, Denver, and Athens, Greece, I travel frequently, installing pieces across the world. These works become part of a global narrative - small interventions that invite people to notice their surroundings, engage with their environment, and experience unexpected moments of beauty.