PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Atwater Park resident Charles Long, a nationally renowned visual artist, was honored with the Silver Star Alumni Award at the 130th commencement of The University of the Arts this spring. Long earned his undergraduate degree in painting in 1981 from the Philadelphia College of Art, now The University of the Arts.

Each year, one distinguished alumnus from the University's College of Art and Design and College of Performing Arts receives the Silver Star Alumni Award at commencement. The honorees are selected because they are role models for graduating seniors and represent the tradition of educational and artistic excellence that the University’s faculty works hard to achieve.

“A few years ago,” said UArts professor David Kettner, who taught Long as an undergrad and offered an introductory tribute to Long during commencement, ”Charles gave a lecture on campus that was a most illuminating experience. Essentially, I felt I was listening to someone – yes, a former student – whose artistic principles and life perspectives were so instructive to me that I had an overwhelming sensation of a complete reversal of our former teacher-student relationship. That was a very intimate joy to me, as it would be for any teacher who has the good fortune to experience it.”

Long is an artist best known for his collaborative works with the British pop band Stereolab, which revived 1960s electronic music. From 1995 to 2000, he worked with the group to produce interactive, audio-sculptural installations. These included The Amorphous Body Study Center, in which viewers participated by wearing headphones connected to objects such as couches and cushions and listening to the music of Stereolab.

Since 2003, he has returned to his early focus on immobile, abstracted sculptural objects and assemblages that combine found objects, debris and materials such as plaster, steel and papier-mâché. Long, who has been described as “an incredibly talented artist who combines delicacy with conceptual rigor,” and whose work has “a fantastic lyrical quality,” received a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University, and was a featured artist at this year’s Whitney Biennale. He has also participated in group exhibitions in Japan, Australia, Sweden and various U.S. venues.

The University of the Arts is the nation’s first and only university dedicated to the visual, performing and communication arts. Its 2,300 students are enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs on its campus in the heart of Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts. The institution’s roots as a leader in educating creative individuals date back to 1868.