NAU NUA: CHARLIE ANDERSON

Samples of life

Portrait Charlie Anderson © Stephen Busken, 2012

Charlie Anderson looks for an answer about the question of the artistic creativity identifying it with the existence fact itself. From pieces of old magazines, flyers and postcards, he creates a new piece of art, but not as a collage form, putting all them together, but painting a portrait of them in a new combination. He gives them a new purpose and somehow a new life giving also his particular new light to the main question about the artistic creation. Winner of the British Airways travel prize in 2009, has been short listed for the Jerwood Contemporary Painters in 2010, and was awarded the Meyer Oppenheim prize by the Royal Scottish Academy the same year. His work of sampling old pieces to create something new is just the beginning of the artistic career of the young artist Charlie Anderson whose fruits are now presented in the exhibition No one gets out alive.

Why no one gets out alive?

Often when making work I wonder why it is exactly that I’m making art, and what the purpose of art is. For the show I decided to make paintings using images from found magazines, postcards, collectibles, souvenirs and flyers. Some of these things once held value for someone and some of them are just cheap kitsch, but they all shared the same discarded fate, so when bringing them all together in paintings I guess I am glorifiying them in a way, exploring the difference (or lack of) between them and the history of how the images came into existence. I suppose the title relates to the transient nature of these things, to life in general and ultimately to the paintings I’ve made, which won’t last forever.

Cinema, music, TV, publicity, you art comes directly from the popular culture, combining images with text taken from advertisements. What all these elements provide to your artistic language?

On one hand they are simply forms and shapes for painting that are easily accesible and personal to me, and the process of painting them is what becomes paramount to my practice. On the other hand combining the images like this is my way of exercising my understanding of daily life. Like I mentioned above one of the things I’m dealing with when making paintings is what the purpose of making art is, and what constitutes good art. This idea crosses over into other aspects of life as well, so bringing all these images together perhaps makes these questions more clear and open to discussion.

Your work has also an urban style. We can see a lot of broken posters sticked ones over the others just walking around a city but obviously your work has a deeper and personal dimension. First of all, you recreate it through the sole use of paint and the effect on the viewer is completely different. Where do you want to lead the viewer?

I guess the reason for making the paintings like this is to reflect the throwaway, transient nature of the things that I paint. The subject matter generally comes from things I’ve found, magazines, flyers, adverts etc. I guess by painting them I’m opening up the question as to why they existed in the first place, what their purpose was, and what new purpose they serve as a painting. Again I think it raises parallels to daily life for me. Ultimately I’m asking more questions for discussion with the paintings than offering direct understanding.

It’s really interesting the idea of creating a completely new piece which represents fragments of broken images, sometimes iconic. Is it a sign of hope?

I would say more a sign of optimism or blissful naivity than hope. I try and make paintings that stay true to my values and reasoning.

Your use of images from the popular culture reminds me the cover of some Sex Pistols records like Anarchy in the UK or God save the Queen, all designed by Jamie Reid. What do you have in common with the punk movement?

I was more of a nineties kid so listened to a lot of big beat music. So in a way that seems pretty relevant, how a lot of those musicians sampled other songs or made references to pop culture in their music. The imagery associated with the punk movement appeals because of it’s direct approach to postmodernism I guess, literally taking something and making something new out of it. I love the fast and almost aggressive nature of it, it projects emotion and you can imagine how it felt to make it. It’s an uncompromising art form in a way that I can relate to.

Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg. Pop art, cult art, is there any boundary between them?

I feel like there isn’t anymore, that movement opened up so many doors in art that it all seems to fall under the same umbrella.

The aesthetic component is really strong in your work. Is it one of your goals or a consequence of your personal language?

Partly it comes down to subject matter, and that’s a very personal thing. When I was at college it was also a reaction to the abundance of conceptual art, and as a painter I wanted to create something visually striking. I began making massive paintings of things that I enjoyed in life, and it just kind of developed from there. Now it’s so ingrained in my process that it tends to just happen in paintings.

If we asked you to break something, what would you choose?

My computer.

CHARLIE ANDERSON | NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE exhibition here

An interview by Juan Carlos Romero

Charlie Anderson webiste www.charlie-anderson.co.uk