CHARLIE SCHEIPS

REPRESENTED ARTIST

Charlie Scheips (b. 1959 in New York) is a painter living and working in Manhattan. Scheips’s painting technique and style reflect his fixation with cubism and collage which has informed his work since his college days as an art student. He consciously rejects photographic depiction and instead relies on his eye and hand in his drawings and paintings. The variety in Scheips’ artistic inspirations presents a body of work that is both autobiographical and provocative. His passion for drawing and coloration invites us into a multi-faceted world. He works both representationally and through more inventive constructions that he calls “glueless collages.” Seen collectively, these works reveal a love of literature, mythology, art, religion, music, and culture. Charlie Scheips is also a curator, writer, and cultural historian. He received a BA in Art from Ripon College in Wisconsin and MA from Columbia University in 2010. In the 1980s he was assistant to David Hockney who has remained a longtime friend and sometime collaborator. He is a contributing artist for the on-line weekly digital magazine Air Mail. Scheips first solo exhibition of his paintings was presented in New York in 2020.

ARTWORK

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Charlie Scheips continues in the tradition of the impressionists and modernists who rejected the use and rules of monocular perspective and offered a compelling argument that photography was not the “most vivid depiction of reality.” His more figurative paintings are drawn from life while his montage paintings combine Cubist space with more narrative content that is overt rather than camouflaged by formal techniques. He emphasizes the fact they are made by hand and not emulating the photograph with its adherence to shadow and perspectival depth.

Portraiture is both about looking at and capturing a glimpse of personality. Generally, Scheips paints people that he already knows. He also makes imaginary portraits of people when the mood strikes. The biggest problem he finds with portraiture is finding people who are willing to give him the time to paint them.