 artist profiles |
Charles McCarthy
I lived on the fringe of an exclusive peninsula called Eastern Point in a ill-weathered and decaying summer cottage that could not begin to keep out the cold in the winter. I found myself in a position that I would continue to hold for years to come and still find myself in, sandwiched between the super rich and the middle class, belonging to neither. I think that this is where most artists find themselves, eventually, but I have been here since I was five. Gloucester is famous for its seascapes and many artists live there full or part time and hundreds if not thousands flock there each year to paint the rocks, boats, waves, and sea gulls. Motif #1, a small red wooden building in Rockport, just up the coast, is supposed to be the most painted building in the world. Growing up, I was surrounded by artists, some rather famous I’m sure. When I was eleven my mother and father divorced and my brother and I moved to Atlanta, Georgia with my mother. My sister, who is about eight years older than me, decided to stay in Gloucester with my father. The move to Atlanta was another rough transition. I think that middle school is the worst, most traumatizing period of adolescence, bodies changing, pressure to fit in, cliques, and bullies. I retreated into science fiction books. In ninth grade I went off to boarding school in north Georgia to the Rabun Gap Nacoochee School. Most people think that boarding school is for rich and troubled kids. I was neither rich nor troubled any more than any other teenager, but I seemed to fit in as well as anyone else. I learned a good deal outside of class about other cultures and peoples. When I graduated from Rabun Gap, I went to the University of Georgia, entering as a pre-med major, but ending up, after my first year, in the Lamar Dodd School of Art, majoring in studio art. I don’t have much to say about art school. It was a time to explore and experiment. I had a few teachers that truly inspired me, but sadly the one that stands out most in my mind is the late Gretchen Hupfel. She pushed me to examine and fully understand any and all materials and mediums that I was using, to take an almost scientific approach to art. I enjoyed every assignment that she ever gave me because they all contained some game or challenge aspect. She pushed me in one direction, then another, then another, but always in a direction. I am sad that I only knew her for a short time. After six years of living in Athens off and on, I graduated from the University of Georgia with an A.B. in Studio Art, and here I am today, an artist. I think most people see art as creating something out of nothing or creating something new. I like to think about art as changing one thing into another. All art is this. In my collage work, I transform old newspapers, personal papers, junk mail, class notes, and other things that I have saved and collected for no real reason, into dynamic abstract compositions. In my drawings, I tame chaotic single lines that could have just ended up as scribbles or parts of a letter written to someone’s grandmother into organically erotic human and abstract forms. I am in love with my drawings because I feel like they reflect the techniques of the universe. Recently I have been trying to reconcile the two in an attempt to bring them both to a new level. Why? Because, no real artist ever stops trying to grow. " Charles McCarthy |
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