Naptime
2018
installation view [painting: 26" x 50"]
oil on canvas
The end of the world was imperceptible.
Don’t take your eye off the ball. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Watch closely as the magician performs their trick. Don’t blink. There are stories being told here: about art, about history, about technology, about identity. There is a desire to comment on contemporary events, to protest and rage at today’s news. But also to avoid making work that is instantly yesterday’s fading headline. The use of the confirmedly historical with contemporary themes allows the ripples of time to flow both ways. To participate in the exquisite corpse of the world narrative, merging disparate themes and images – kitsch and Modernism; nature and artifice; the internet kitten and the memento mori. In a world of endless information and imagery, how can we find the essential? The world changes. Will we notice in time?
"Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence." - George Santayana
Charles Browning's work has been in solo shows in NYC and in group shows nationally. He lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and teaches at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.