| Charles Rosenthal |
Artist C. J. Rosenthal, now 62, has been painting for nearly 45 years.
As a child Rosenthal was always that "artist kid" in school,the one that
doodled and daydreamed throughout the day, the one the other children
gathered around as he would draw dinosaurs, the one the teacher
asked to do all the artwork for class projects. Fascinated by and in love
with the natural world and enchanted by painting and comic books,
anthropomorphised characters and human-animal hybrids have long
been featured in his work.
Mentored as a painter by his Bayside High School art teacher, Joan
Cohen, he later attended The School of Visual Arts in New York City. In
1982, after participating in a summer work/study program in Costa Rica
(Charles was then studying physical anthropology at Queens College)
involving census taking and behavioral research with Howler Monkeys,
and subsequently spending a few weeks backpacking around Nicaragua,
where he learned of covert American involvement in fomenting
revolution against the duly elected Sandinista government, Charles
decided to leave the U.S. indefinitely.
With $200 in his pocket and no contacts, he flew to London, where
he quickly found a shared flat and a job waiting tables. He met other
artists and began to exhibit his work in pubs, cafés and small galleries,
established a studio in Elephant and Castle, and eventually earned a
residency at The Florence Trust in Highbury.
In 1990 Charles signed on with Tibor DeNagy Gallery in New York City.
He and his wife at the time, a french national, spent 18 months in New
York, and Charles had several exhibitions (of primarily abstract work)
during this period.
After returning to France Charles maintained a studio in La Rochelle,
where he returned to painting the figure and creatively exploring many of
his old passions, such as comic book art, wildlife and science. His palette
expanded and became more colorful, and he began employing classical
techniques like glazing and experimenting with colored grounds.
Charles eventually returned to the U.S. in 1999. Back in New York, he
joined the now defunct cooperative gallery Subculture on Broome Street
in lower Manhattan, where his work was featured regularly. After a brief
stint and a couple of shows at Central Arts Collective in Tucson, AZ in
2000 - 2001, Charles moved to Los Angeles to gain certification in the use
of Autodesk Maya software. He remained in LA for four years, painting
several murals in between animation gigs, before returning to New York
in 2005.
His other lifelong infatuation, wildlife, has manifested itself through
intermittent bouts of voluntary fieldwork in conservation and rescue-and
rehab-efforts across the globe, including in Kenya, India, Thailand and
Arizona. He has also had the good fortune to have spent a few years,
cumulatively, backpacking around Central America, Europe, Africa and
Asia, mostly in the 1980's and '90's.
Charles has spent the years since refining his voice, vision and technique
and experimenting aesthetically and technically with new ideas. He now
resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife Kimberly, and their golden
retriever dog-child, Squid Vicious.
In 2016, Charles had the privilege of attending NES Artist Residency in
Skagaströnd, Iceland, for three months, and in 2019 he was honored to
be selected as one of 16 artists from around the world to produce work
for a permanent installation at the Kakalaskáli museum in Kringlumýri, in
the north of Iceland.
In his work, Charles continues to eschew a predetermined narrative,
relying on the visual language of his art. He invites the viewer to react
and invent one’s own story about what might be going on.
Pop Gallery is pleased to represent Charles Rosenthal exclusively in Santa Fe, NM. Contact us directly for pricing and availability at 505.820.0788 or email Sharla@popsantafe.com.
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