ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Art is simple, pure, unrefined. There are no borders, no preconceived notions. It is more about the ethereal, the unknown, and those things that reside in the subconscious, in those areas which dreams feed on. In that case, can art be defined? Art can be categorized, analyzed, intellectualized, compartmentalized, even trivialized. But for something that is basic human nature, like an emotion, reflex, a sense or notion, a feeling, or an essence, art eludes explication. While understanding the nature of art is difficult, making qualitative distinctions about what constitutes exceptional art is not as troublesome. Art presents sensory observations in which oftentimes the simplest efforts are the most profound. Moreover, while it is to be recognized and celebrated, craft is no substitute for insight. Though a media fosters certain kinds of observations and craft facilitates their fruition, the resulting work is either well observed or it is not. Art becomes particularly interesting if it offers a new insight into the world around us, each other, or ourselves. Art can offer us new ways of seeing.

I regard my work as simple, essential, and primary. Each piece seems to have a direct reference to distinguishable forms, or perhaps from one’s remembrance of other things. They reflect a likeness, but there is also something else. It is a celebration of spiritual energy, where the revelation replaces the intellect. It is a process where structural elements are choreographed through the minds eye, where it all locks together with a natural sense, spontaneity and rhythm. Henri-George Clouzot’s 1956 film “The Mystery of Picasso” is a great cinematic study of this concept, in which Picasso himself stated “To be able to understand a painter’s mind, one need only to follow his hand.” This also can be said for those artists who have adopted the computer as a means,
where painting and rendering are performed digitally. Effectively, the mouse and keyboard have become the new tools of the art making process, and in my case, making it possible to undergo the same spiritual intensity and sometimes hypnotic spontaneity that the painting process imparts. Painter Milton Avery, who at times painted up to six paintings a day, considered the importance of expressive spontaneity in describing that when art becomes labored, it tends to look contrived and forced, losing its inherit rhythm and natural spiritual energy. This is why so-called “outsider art” particularly appeals to me in that the creativity is pure and unadulterated, not cluttered by biased notions as to what art should or shouldn’t be. In this way the emphasis is on the nature of things, not the thing itself. Byzantine and other non-western artforms also exemplify this notion.

If art needed a working definition, a generalized hint as to what it could be, I would have to agree with what painter Marsden Hartley described as “…that which produces a vibration in the soul.”

BIOGRAPHY

Charles Wilkinson was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania in 1965, and for as long as he can remember he has always drawn or painted. His father was an art teacher, and was able to bring home art supplies and encourage his somewhat unorthodox but determined scribblings.

In his teens he received both the blue ribbon and gold key awards from The Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts, as well as The Superintendent’s Purchase Award.

Charles attended Kutztown University of Pennsylvania and a year abroad at Middlesex University in London, England, where he studied painting and drawing, and received his BFA degree in 1987. The first exhibition of his paintings was at Gallery Zed, Quicksilver Place, London.

In 1993 he received an MFA in painting from The City University of New York, and was the recipient of The Elizabeth Connor Award for the Study of Art two times running. He served as an assistant to expressionist painter Jay Milder for two years, where he bore witness first hand to the world of abstract expressionism. Having heated discussions about spiritualism during dinner parties with such personalities as AnneTabachnik, Bill Burell, Milton Resnick and Pat Pasloff was an education far beyond the academic, and that has forever inspired Charles in his thinking and his art making. Hi first exhibit in New York City was at The Step Gallery in Soho in 1992, and his first solo show was at A.B.C NoRio on New York City’s Lower East Side in 1994.

Charles has taught art in different venues, ranging from special populations at The Devereux Foundation and The Young Adult Institute, to students in an after school visual arts program at a Brooklyn Heights Montessori School, and to teaching art and studio foundation courses at The City College of New York.

Charles presently runs the fine arts company Antico Effetto, a business he started in 1997 that specializes in decorative Italian stuccoes, faux finishing and trompe l’oeil based in New York. His interior artistic work and polished Venetian stuccoes have appeared in such periodicals as Interiors, Architectural Digest and Architectural Record. He continues to live and make art in Brooklyn, and exhibits his work any chance he gets.