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Exhibition runs from 19th November to 3rd December 2006
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ANGELA CHARLES Textured
Skins of Memory Angela
Charles loves moody grey, she also loves light and simplicity and yet some
of her favourite artists are Rauschenberg, Basquiat, Dubuffet and
Schwitters. The texture and
excitement of surprising marks and colours is the link between the
sometimes outrageously busy paintings by these artists and the spare
minimalism of Charles’ paintings. She is
inspired by the most overlooked marks and colour experiences in everyday
life – masking tape on the edge of a drawing board, peeling paint in the
ladies’ loo, an old worn leather cushion, dirty paint marks on a wall.
She loves old toy trucks and the slightly worn rusty red of the
metal. Having travelled all
over the world Charles has a huge bank of those surprising moments when
something ordinary seems extraordinary.
In The
sensations of these every-day found objects and discoveries in Angela
Charles’ life undergo a metamorphosis in her artworks and turn into
completely new visual experiences. The
original inspiration is the starting point then she works carefully at
reproducing the feeling in a different visual form.
She starts with a smooth flat surface, usually in a box format, and
applies a series of ground colours, marks and textures working them
towards the recreation of the memory.
She is always open to discoveries in her use of materials and
includes polyfiller, chalk, pva and brown paper gum strip.
The experience is contained in the surprising textures and subtlety
of the colours, which vie for importance with the meeting of edges and
tiny, suggestive marks scratched and drawn on the surface. The effect
is meditative, as surfaces and hints of distance and objects waft in and
out of focus. Like Rothko,
Angela Charles favours vertical format paintings and a few carefully
created colours, and like Rothko the meeting of edges and play of
rectangles often suggest landscape. Architecture
contributes to Charles’ sources of inspiration but not for the bulk,
volume or space of buildings but rather for their skin.
The rectangle of one wall against another, the remains of gloss
paint against matt in the corner, graffiti and other marks affecting the
texture of a concrete surface. The
old Yeovil Cinema Complex and the Car Park in Charles’
studying of Fine Art/Textiles at Goldsmiths’ contributed to her
awareness of, and interest in, textured surfaces.
She recognises Tracy Emin’s courage in using textiles as it is
such a statement against traditional materials.
Line, pattern and forms on surfaces are very much part of her
training which focused on silk-screening and experimentation with collage
and stitched lines. These
textile beginnings have evolved in her paintings into painterly
abstractions, which prompt ideas that are more spiritual than material. Since moving
to Somerset from Oct. 2003
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