Born 1962 - very cold snowy winter in Northumberland
Went to a few schools but seemed to prefer ferreting and drawing cartoons
Attempted university twice but left both within a week
No formal art training except for three months in America where I learned how to deal with bed bugs
Began as a cartoonist for The Spectator
Illustrated books
First exhibited drawings in London in 1985
Since then have done some 35 one man exhibitions in Galleries in New York , London and Edinburgh
Work now features in private collections (people's loos mainly), churches, and prisons
Most recent show at the Belgravia Gallery, London with Rembrandt etchings . . . mmm

 

Its difficult to write about yourself, but I'd like to try to say a few things if I can.

If you look at the paintings on this site, a fair proportion seem to have some kind of angel or spiritual thing going on. I'm aware that this may seem a little odd . . . I'm not sure how that all happened really. How it all began, but it has not come from a love of religion. In many ways I find religion a little toxic and disturbing. A moral high ground; a tribal gathering against the world.

I guess for me it all came from a quiet feeling when I was in a London park that there must be more to this than meets the eye. It wasnt a criticism of the park, tawdry as it was, just a sense that I was missing something, somehow. Or as Eugene Ionesco put it, " the human comedy does not attract me enough. I am not entirely of this world. I am from elsewhere; and it is worth finding this elsewhere beyond the walls . . . but where is it? "

So bizarrely my response to this question was to start drawing. Most people go to church or India or something. I just sat down and drew, and havent really stopped. That was twenty years ago . . . so help me someone.

The work began as ink drawings of London , analytical and thorough, analysing everything. Over time things loosened and the work became more open and developed from there. It seems I go through phases or issues such as the prodigal son story and work them through until somehow it's over, and I can move on. There are clear and obvious phases-the jazz, the angels, musicians and the prodigals. Interspersed between all of these are random studies of life; narratives if you like, - such as drawings of friends, and cafes, which are unspecific in their message but to me are as valid.

I guess for me its all about wonder, and everyone has their own way of feeling it or expressing it. G. K. Chesterton said " At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder ." I guess when you dig eventually you find something,and however awkward it may sound (with all the sub-cultural religious stuff that comes with it - ug) I discovered that for me the doorway to this sunrise of wonder was Christ.

When I was sixteen, working on a harvest in Northumberland, I overheard a conversation between two Geordie farm workers . . .

"Im going to an art gallery on Saturday."
"A gallery? what the hell for?"
"Because I get moved.It takes me somewhere."
"Ah you big girls blouse"

They laughed,but I never forgot it. I'm always surprised when I hear people have been moved or taken somewhere by my work. It's not really on the cusp of things or shocking remotely.Im not interested in that. It's just the wonder thing I'm interested in. I think Joseph Conrad sums it up pretty well. " The artist ..speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives, to our sense of pity and beauty and pain ."

Anyway,thanks and I hope you like the pictures. Feel free to contact me.

 

Charlie