Tell us a little about yourself!
My name is Charlie, I live on the Isle of Wight, have a badass moustache (can’t hear the haters) and not enough dogs. I recently graduated from Winchester School of Art and am currently doing an MA in Cultural Heritage at Winchester Uni.
When did your love of art begin?
Most people draw as kids and I just never stopped! I think it’s a family thing. Inevitable. I have several relatives who have at some point been interested in art. I was lucky to have some encouraging teachers as well, and it was the only time at school I dared to stand out. I was a shy child so obviously the quiet isolation involved appealed to me.
What inspires your work and why?
That’s a really difficult question! Lots of things. I’m interested in archetypes, myths, universal truisms, dreams and the Collective Unconscious. The Collective Unconscious is a term coined by Carl Jung to describe how the structure of the psyche innately and autonomously organises human experience in particular recognisable ways. The Collective Unconscious represents personal experiences in a similar way in each member of the species and could explain the similar imagery and allegory used in myth and art throughout different cultures.
I’m always looking out for new artists to influence my style and thinking, and also new themes to represent. Mostly I stumble across new ideas by accident, one idea leads into the next or my research for one piece throws up new questions or characters that I put to the back of my mind to mull over for the next.
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How has your art developed over the years and how do you see it developing into the future?
I've just finished a degree in Fine Art, but over the three years I barely made anything I liked. Oops. The whole experience felt like practice. Trying to find a medium or theme that could sustain a consistent body a work and not just disjointed pieces. Now I've left and barely have time to draw, I’m more excited by my own practice; perhaps because I can’t over-think or there is nobody to question my every decision. I just had to look at the wider picture, embrace all the themes I had been looking at but not feel the pressure to convey a message or story.
Seeing as I've only got two or three drawings that I think really represent the future of my work, it’s difficult to say exactly how it will develop. I just hope my drawing skills improve and I continue to increase the range of references and inspirations in my work. My aim is to not have a nagging feeling that I don’t know what I’m doing, or why, or what I’ll do next.
How do you go about preparing for a piece?
Usually by reading, writing, watching films and reflecting on vague ideas or feelings that I think would make a good piece. Sometimes it feels like I’m summarising someone’s ideas that I sympathise with into a drawing. Or attempting to anyway. I then look for imagery that I feel represents part of this vision, collect it (usually via Pinterest) then collage it into a composition and start drawing! I’m recycling images that already exist but combining them into my own unique interpretation.
Can you tell me about your favourite piece that you have created?
My favourite piece is the very last work I made at university called ‘Narkissos Reflected’. It’s not necessarily my ‘best’ work but it’s inspired a new way of thinking and (hopefully) many other works to come.
The piece was inspired by the hand drawn collage ‘Narkissos’, completed by San-Francisco based artist Jess in 1991 and influenced by the myth of Echo. Echo is cursed to repeat the last words spoken to her, but in her perusal of the beautiful youth Narcissus she is able to select only the parts of his speech that express her own desired message, to repeat back to him. She skilfully overcomes an enforced economy of self expression to achieve her own limited method of communication. Jess mirrored these restrictions in his own practice by using only images created by others. He appropriated the elements of the whole that could be used to his own advantage, by manipulating the source imagery to express his own vision.
I used the same processes in my reinterpretation of the piece ‘Narkissos Reflected’, by selecting elements of the original drawing that appealed to me and representing them with new versions of the same imagery. The work is filtered through my own perspective whilst reflecting the original in composition and is therefore a third hand interpretation of an idea.
Accepting these limitations felt important and on a practical level means I can recycle existing imagery to quickly represent an abstract thought or feeling. I've continued using this method in the pieces ‘Eclipse’, ‘Proteus’ and another I have just started work on.
Can we expect any exciting new projects?
I have just entered a piece into the Signature Art Prize so fingers crossed! I've also just started on my next drawing, a dream inspired scene I've been mulling over for a while...
You can check out my work here (or even buy it! No pressure…)
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