Charlie Roberts

The Studio
2012
acrylic on linen
185 x 180 cm
Snakes
2008
acrylic on wood
variable sizes
untitled
2014
acrylic on paper
100 x 70 cm
untitled
2014
acrylic on paper
70 x 100 cm

Charlie Roberts (1983) is a polymath, a cultural magpie. His various endeavours cross-pollinate, building myths amongst themselves. Born in the USA, educated in Canada and living in Norway, Roberts’ works borrow from art-historical and pop-cultural sources. His cramped paintings display the perspectival complexity of ancient Egyptian and Byzantine painting. The contents are stacked one above the other, showing different views simultaneously. The subject matter – utterly contemporary, banal and everyday – is at odds with the delicacy of the medium the works are made in. Watercolour on paper, over a painted pink ground which unifies the overall image and brings harmonious tonal order to the chaotic scenarios. His wide-ranging practice also encompasses sculptures roughly carved from chunks of local trees and then painted, situated somewhere between tribal objects, folk art and pop-cultural figures.

Charlie Roberts’ work takes us to a manic, obsessive mind stream of an eclectic collector of contemporary pop culture and art history. Everything is sampled and laid out without hierarchical order and judgements. Roberts uses a wide range of materials and masters a furious force as well as a sensitive subtleness. Abstract patterns, flowing colours and a primitive brutality work alongside tender lines, seductive realism and psychedelic poetry. Every single picture or sculpture holds its own autonomous world. Roberts’ works construct a self-contained imaginary world that comes to an end at the edges of the canvas or paper: a world of bright colours and insouciantly coiled lines describing schematic, ornamental bodies without depth. According to the artist, his work is committed to pure play without consequences.

www.francisboeskeprojects.nl
The Studio
2012
acrylic on linen
185 x 180 cm
Snakes
2008
acrylic on wood
variable sizes
untitled
2014
acrylic on paper
100 x 70 cm
untitled
2014
acrylic on paper
70 x 100 cm