bernard charnley visual artist

Bernard Charnley is based in Stoke-on-Trent and works primarily in paint with an emphasis on colour and material uses. The imagery engages with ideas of impermanence, chance and identity.
His practice includes membership of AirSpace, an artist led group aiming to promote the city as a centre for contemporary visual arts.

www.bernardcharnley.co.uk
airspacegallery.org
email: plainair@btinternet.com

Recent Exhibitions/Events

Group:
-Slideshow/AirSpace Gallery/Stoke-on-Trent/2011
-Kiss Me Quick/Harbour Arm Gallery/Margate/2011
-Motel Knadski/Trajector Art Fair/Contributing Artist/Brussels/2011
-There Is Beauty In The City/ Ezcurdia_30 Gallery/Gijon, Spain/August 2010
-Common Ground/AirSpace public art exhibition/Hanley Park/June 2010
-Learning Journeys/Urban Vision/Phase One/Sheffield/Feb 2010
-Learning Journeys/Urban Vision/Phase One/Leicester/2009
-Pecha Kucha Night/FatCat Cafe and Bar/Co-organiser/Performer/2009
-Inter?ogation/Walsall New Art Gallery/Sept 2009 Collaborative with artist Brian Holdcroft-Marina Abramovich/participant /Whitworth Gallery/Manchester/2009
-AntiFreeze/Manchester/2009
-Aftermath/AirSpace studio -artists Leek Institute, Leek/2009
-Preston Pest Project/Castlefield Gallery 2008
-Allotments/Harrington Studios, Nottingham – 2008
-D2, Leipzig – Salon 2008
-Play/AirSpace, Stoke-on-Trent – 2008
-Short Cuts/AirSpace Gallery/2007
-Identity/The Artists Organisation/ Nottingham/2007
-Headtalk/forum/co-creator/Stoke-on-Trent/2007 -10

Solo:
The Instability of Spaces/AirSpace Dialogue Box/Stoke-on-Trent - August 2009
A Different Kind of Beauty/Harrington Studios/ Nottingham - April 2009


 

Portrait in Studio Space

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Copyright Stephanie Rushton.com

"One interest for me is the territory of permissions and exclusions, the marginalised or transient state between or across identities where the dynamics of social and political control come into play."

“My work process is often a kind of layering that pushes the extremes of image construction as a research in itself. It is also a metaphoric device that references the human and the political. The materiality that results engages a sense of the ruptures and texture of lives under pressure and over time. Colour acts as a redemptive energy, a resistance to closure and fact. The whole process is a kind of archeology of the present.”

"I like to try and keep alive that space between chance and intent. The images are constructions out of this mix over time. The main levers are surface articulation, colour and often specific insertions of objects or other material.""The comedic or absurd is part of my thinking, and a strand in my work. I see them as a strong symbolic and allegorical resource."