Charles Ellis

Artist Bio and Statement

This is an incomplete list of the artists that have influenced me in no particular order.

Lois Howard Gray, Cecily Brown, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Franz Kline, Helen Frankenthaler, Anselm Kiefer, Lucian Freud, Jackson Pollack, Willem de Kooning, Georgia O'Keeffe, William Blake, Pablo Picasso, Hieronymus Bosch, Claude Monet, Marc Chagall, Vincent Van Gogh, J.M.W. Turner, Jean Cocteau, Igor Stravinsky and Gustav Holst.

Born and raised in Lexington, I come from a family tree with many branches of left-handed artists and creative individuals. Self-taught from before school age, I have always sketched, drawn and painted. Other than only taking art history courses in college, I have travelled throughout Europe and America, exploring museums, galleries and exhibitions to follow and see in person the work of my favorite artists and expose myself to new art. I lived in Cuba for seven months and England for five years before resettling in Louisville in 2009. Fifteen years ago I began painting in oil my first series of large expressionistic abstracts.

I am very creative person and I have been involved in several projects, films, plays and albums as a composer, musician, singer, actor and artist. Every experience has informed my art and my approach to art.

I paint because I must create and because it is cathartic and validating.

I paint for myself and I am looking for something I have never seen that is beautiful and or reveals a mood or feeling. I am the only person I know how to artistically please and I am glad when other people relate to my work.

Abstract painting excites me because of its improvisational nature. My approach to painting is the same for composing, musical performance, sound design, acting or any creative endeavor. I like to experiment without rules or boundaries

To me my paintings are like images from dreams that are slightly shifting and changing. I often see new things in my work as I stare at them looking to make sure they are finished.

When I work I do not have a preconception of what I am about to paint. I avoid thinking. I try to stay ahead of my inner narrator that begins to decide and tell me what is good or bad, right or wrong. I try to get "me" out of the way and let the parts of me that are not verbal to communicate on canvas. I am not afraid to fail because often a piece that isn't working provides the underpainting f