The Huntsville Museum of Art will continue the Encounters exhibition series with Georgia artist, Charles Ladson on Feb. 23. Since 1986, the Museum has presented a noteworthy series of solo exhibitions highlighting recent work by acclaimed regional contemporary artists. Encounters: Charles Ladson will open Feb. 23 with a gallery walk and opening reception from 2 – 4 p.m.
Charles Ladson is a painter from Macon, Georgia whose lush, atmospheric landscapes and interiors scenes, are filled with thoughtfully rendered textures and abstracted shapes. The worlds Ladson paints often have a tactile quality, populated by wood, grass, fabric, metal, plastic, brick, concrete and leather. He draws the viewer in with their sensuous surfaces, but the artist frequently disrupts the senses with subtle structural shifts such as a line just off, a bit of soil that could be positive or negative space, a shadow from a light source that doesn’t meld with reality. These subtle elements create visual paradoxes that suggest unspoken stories.
The artist’s approach to his work is deliberately instinctual, and his compositions begin with no preconceived notion of what they will eventually become.
“The content comes intuitively from this process and is more ambiguous than any deliberate attempt at commentary,” Ladson has observed. As a result, “people see what they want to see, and everybody brings their own story to the table.”
Since its start in 1986, Encounters has developed a strong critical reputation throughout the Southeast. The Museum has presented approximately 75 individual exhibitions in the series and will be Ladson’s first solo exhibition.
Ladson received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and his MFA degree from the University of Georgia in Athens, GA. His work has been exhibited throughout the Southeast, including the last Red Clay Survey exhibition at the Huntsville Museum of Art, where he won a Merit Award.
