charles browning indices : paintings : : : a year and a day installation : the hunting of the wren video : mote art : collaborations : : : foundrysite
contact : email (remove "BEEP" from address before sending)

C H A R L E S B R O W N I N G
Nature Morte
Nature Morte - 2009
oil on canvas (30" X 24") (click to see a larger version)
private collection


Mythology
Mythology - 2009
oil on canvas (54" X 60") (click to see a larger version)


Mastery
Mastery - 2009
oil on linen (36" X 48") (click to see a larger version)
private collection


Thievery
Thievery - 2009
oil on linen (36" X 48") (click to see a larger version)


Mine
Mine - 2008
oil on canvas (72" X 84") (click to see a larger version)
private collection


Sometimes You Just Have To Kill Everything
Sometimes You Just Have To Kill Everything - 2007
oil on canvas (40" X 48") (click to see a larger version)
private collection


Nature or Nurture
Nature or Nurture - 2008
oil on linen (40" X 48") (click to see a larger version)


Strategy
Strategy - 2008
oil on canvas (40" X 48") (click to see detail)


Necessary Arrangements (It's Only Torture If They're Human)
Necessary Arrangements (It's Only Torture If They're Human) - 2008
oil on canvas (24" X 30") (click to see detail)


Painted Savage [after Jesse Talbot]
Painted Savage [after Jesse Talbot] - 2008
oil on canvas (26" X 22") (click to see detail)


B'lieve I'll Run On, See What's the End Gonna Be [after Currier and Ives]
B'lieve I'll Run On, See What's the End Gonna Be
[after Currier and Ives] - 2008
oil on canvas (30" X 40") (click to see a larger version)


Fuck You, You Fucking Fucks
Fuck You, You Fucking Fucks - 2008
oil on canvas (20" X 16") (click to see a larger version)


Who put pee-pee in my coke
Who put pee-pee in my Coke - 2005-2007
oil on canvas (54" X 66") (click to see a larger version)
private collection


Appaloosa
Appaloosa - 2006
oil on linen (36" X 48") (click to see detail)
private collection


Booger Dance
Booger Dance - 2006
oil on canvas (24" X 36")
private collection


Broad Daylight
Broad Daylight - 2006
oil on canvas (24" X 34")


Little Shit
Little Shit - 2006
oil on canvas (12" X 12") (click to see a larger version)
private collection


Blackface
Blackface - 2005
oil on canvas (30" X 24") (click to see a larger version)
private collection


Booger
Booger - 2005
oil on canvas (18" X 24")
private collection


Born To Run
Born To Run - 2005
oil on canvas (24" X 30")
private collection


Buffalo Bill
Buffalo Bill - 2005
oil on canvas (30" X 24")
private collection


Race Horse
Race Horse - 2004
oil on canvas (22" X 30")
private collection



Subject Matter - 2004
oil on canvas (72" X 84")
private collection


Battle of the Indians

Battle of the Indians - 2004/5
oil on canvas (84" X 144") (click to see a larger version)


untitled (cow)
Untitled (Cow) - 2004
oil on canvas (44" X 58")
private collection


new friends
New Friends - 2003
oil on canvas (72" X 60")(click to see a larger version)


what are you looking at
What Are You Looking At? - 2003
oil on canvas (20" X 24")
private collection


man of science
Man of Science - 2003
oil on canvas (60" X 70")(click to see a larger version)


lessen
Lessen - 2003
oil on canvas (72" X 84")
private collection


a good chance
A Good Chance - 2002
oil on canvas (48" X 60")


union
Union - 2002
oil on canvas (60" X 72")(click to see a larger version)


Dumb Ass
Dumb Ass - 2002
oil on canvas (72" X 60")(click to see a larger version)(click to see a larger version)





NEWS:
  • Epic Painting

    Oct 23-Dec. 8, 2009
    Works from
    Al Banisadr, Charles Browning, Robert Colescott, Julie Heffernan, Laurie Hogin, and Nicky Nodjoumi

    Bucknell University
    Samek Art Gallery
    Lewisburg, PA 17837
    tel 570.577.3792
    www.bucknell.edu/samek.xml





  • It's a Schro Ro Summer!

    July 9 - 31, 2009
    Works from
    Brice Brown, Charles Browning, Janice Caswell, Susan Graham, Eric Heist, Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth, Laurie Hogin, William Powhida, Michael Waugh, Ken Weaver

    SCHROEDER ROMERO
    637 West 27th Street
    New York, NY 10001
    www.schroederromero.com


  • Strangers in a Strange Land

    August 2009
    Works from
    Charles Browning, Duncan Hannah, Todd Hebert, and Carl D'Alvia

    Morgan Lehman Gallery
    24 Sharon Road/Rte 41
    PO Box 1305
    Lakeville, CT 06039
    tel (860) 435.0898
    fax (860) 435.0899
    www.morganlehmangallery.com/ct


  • Dark Americana

    Press release

    Featuring: Derek Albeck; Grant Barnhart; Charles Browning; Bruce Conner; Chris Crites; R. Crumb; Oscar Cueto; Jack Daws; John De Fazio; Bill Fick; Scott Fife; Maria Forde; Rebecca Goldfarb; Tom Huck; Charles Krafft; Brendan Lott; TV Moore; Raymond Pettibon; Liz Rossof; Roger Shimomura.

    April 4th - May 9th, 2009
    Opening Reception: Saturday, April 4th, 2009, 4pm - 6pm

    Baer Ridgway Exhibitions
    172 Minna Street
    San Francisco, CA 94105
    tel (415) 777-1366
    fax (415) 777-1364
    http://www.baerridgway.com/


  • Giving Face
    Portraits for a New Generation
    Curated by Stephen Heighton

    Press release (PDF)

    Featuring: Nina Chanel Abney; Damien Hirst; Skylar Fein; Nick Cave; Bénédicte Peyrat; Norbert Bisky; James Gobel; Kim Dorland; Cayce Zavaglia; Ken Weaver; James Everett Stanley; Charlie Roberts; Andrew Diaz Hope; Liz Markus; Li Bo; Charles Browning; Nathan Ritterpusch; Robert Loughlin; Jon Flack; Randy Polumbo; Julie Heffernan.

    March 7 - April 11, 2009
    Opening Reception: Saturday, March 7, 2009, 6-9 pm

    Nicholas Robinson Gallery
    535 West 20th Street
    New York NY 10011
    Tel (212) 560-9075
    Fax (212) 560-9076
    http://www.nrgallery.com


  • Remembering to Forget: Strategies of Propaganda and Mythology

    Charles Browning's solo show at Schroeder Romero

    May 15 - June 21, 2008
    Opening Reception: Thursday, May 15, 6-8pm

    Schroeder Romero
    637 West 27th Street - Ground Floor
    New York, NY 10001
    (212) 630-0722
    http://www.schroederromero.com

    READ REVIEWS FROM: Benjamin Sutton; Terre Jenkins writing for Donne Tempo


  • Caucus

    Charles Browning - Jennifer Dalton - Eric Heist - Laurie Hogin
    Lou Laurita - Walter Martin & Paloma Mu–oz - Laura Parnes
    William Powhida - Heidi Schlatter - Michael Waugh - David Wojnarowicz

    January 10 - February 16, 2008
    Opening Reception: Thursday, January 10, 6-8pm

    Schroeder Romero
    637 West 27th Street - Ground Floor
    New York, NY 10001
    (212) 630-0722
    http://www.schroederromero.com


  • Keeping it Real

    Curated by Jerry Kearns

    November 15 - December 21, 2007

    James W. and Lois I. Richmond Center for Visual Arts
    Gwen Frostic Shool of Art
    Albertine Monroe Brown Gallery
    College of Fine Arts
    Western Michigan University
    1903 W. Michigan Avenue
    Kalamazoo, MI 49008

    Director of Exhibitions: Don Desmett @ 269-387-2455


  • Promised Land
    Curated by Elizabeth M. Grady
    June 7 - August 4, 2007
    Morgan Lehman Gallery, NYC
    web: http://www.morganlehmangallery.com

    READ REVIEWS FROM: The Village Voice; The New York Times


  • Story Redefined
    Curated by Ji-Yaang Kim & Sisun Song
    April 12 - 28, 2007
    POIETIS GALLERY / POET'S DEN ART CENTER, NYC
    http://www.poetsden.com


  • Don't Know Much About History

    Curated by Denise Markonish
    November 18, 2006 - January 20, 2007
    Artspace, New Haven, CT
    http://www.artspacenh.org/

    READ REVIEWS FROM: The New York Times; The New Haven Advocate; CT Artscene; CT Central;




About Charles Browning's work:

Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence. - George Santayana

The past is never dead. It's not even past. - William Faulkner

The paintings of Charles Browning offer a complex interplay of Art and History, humor and brutality, sincerity and irony, narrative and allegory. They present us with a "new" history painting, one that lays claim to a position of authority among the images of the past. Browning's sincerely flat-footed love of an anachronistic form of painting adroitly skewers the propaganda of frontier mythology. Using the associative potential of historical imagery and narrative, the scope of Browning's work expands to implicate us all in the goings on within.

What's your strategy? Blow on west, shooting and drinking, and before you know it, you've conquered a continent. Use it or lose it! "We The People" shall decide who shall be included in "The People." All others will serve or be destroyed, absorbed, or forgotten. We move closer to the self-evident truths and inalienable rights laid out at the founding of the nation by eliminating inconvenient claimants. And they will keep popping up!

What's wrong with this picture? We live in funny times. We live in unfunny times. A confluence of Nationalism and Romanticism in 19th century American painting forms an image of the nation, a cultural foundation for the idea of Manifest Destiny, for Paul Bunyan, Kit Carson, Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Distract the people from real dangers with shadow play. Shoot where there are easy targets. Sound familiar? Tell us another story of our great success, a story to explain away the cruel clowns and buffoonish brutes from then 'till now.





Press comments:

From "Fixing What' Aint Broken: Notes on Non Magical Realism" by Douglas Kelley (http://dks.thing.net/)

When Charles Browning paints about 'Politics out of History' he does not mean an ahistorical politics, but a politics that has lost its mooring in History as a grand narrative of progress. he accordingly situates his work within that paradoxical space where modernity and postmodernity -- structured history and posthistoire -- are entangled. Here he identifies a pervasive cultural and political malaise: a residual bad faith whereby we fetishise or mourn the anachronistic forms of a more meaningful history even as we jettison their foundations. His aim is to think through the possibilities that emerge from these ruins of modernity and to resist the dangers of a reactionary, moralising or nostalgic politics that all too readily emerges from anxieties incurred on the threshold of post-modernity. Indeed he strikes a rather recuperative note in his introduction by espousing the hope that history 'may finally come home.'





Foundry notes:

Charles Browning is a long time friend of mine. We have worked together on many projects over the years, including several Yellow Snow Chapbooks and the Mote CD package. Charles created the What are you afraid of? installation with Lynda Gene Rymond, for which I recorded music (these recordings led to the Descent album, which I released under the name The Apiary). Charles and I collaborated again several years later on the A Year and A Day installation (I provided the soundtrack for the video element), for which Charles was the recipient of the Michener Millennium Design Award.

Charles has painted for as long as I've known him and has shown work in various galleries over the years. Charles has been developing a significant body of work, creating paintings more layered and complex every year - it has been exciting to see such growth. You can explore a selection of this work at the left.

The small reproductions here certainly do not do justice to the full sized works (note the actual size below each work), but they will, I think, whet your appetite to attend one of the many shows in which Charles is having his work displayed.

Michael Bentley (1 January 2007)

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Here are links to several of Charles' Foundry related projects:





DUMB ASS APPEARS ON BOOK COVER!

A Gringo Like Me book cover
(click to see a larger version)

A Gringo Like Me book cover
(click to see a larger version)

Charles' painting Dumb Ass and Booger made cover appearances on A Gringo Like Me and Drunk By Noon, two books of poetry by Jennifer Knox. Further information can be found here and at Jennifer's site here.





Links to friends and art of interest: