Charlie Roberts’s pieces resemble an entomologist’s cork-board pinnings of rejected comic book characters. Disembodied faces are displayed in a pseudo grid along with guns, sneakers, cigarettes, fast food, and other paraphernalia. Amidst the chaos, Frankenstein’s monster flashes a peace sign, Batman’s red-rimmed eyes peer out from his mask, Donald Duck looks woozy and a little drunk, and a host of suspicious mugs populate the page.
Roberts describes these works as a form of mental exercise that keeps him sharp between creating larger pieces. “The sheets with heads became more fun than the paintings,” he explained in a Vice interview.
“When I’ve been standing in front of the piece of paper for a few hours and I start to space out, it’s good to paint a knife or some sex. It wakes me up and usually makes me laugh.”
His other projects include scenes of his workspace, which reveal the meticulous process behind his creations. These portraits of clutter reflect his method of obsessively collecting and documenting pop culture images, from icons like Bob Marley to trending brands like Nike and Vans-esque slip on shoes.
Roberts has taken a step away from minutia in his recent work, which features young, cigarette-puffing punks sprawled across the canvas. Unlike the cropped characters of previous pieces, the limbs of these figures extend and curve like stretched taffy and bump against the edges of the frame. Whether Roberts is painting oversized, dimorphic figures or doodling segmented body parts, his “dudes” always cram the canvas and page, leaving little room for negative space, or for the viewer to pause and take a breath. These jam-packed pieces reflect the modern, media saturated mind that is constantly inundated with a host of images.
The artist does not have a website, but you can see more of his work on the Richard Heller Gallery’s website.
