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Charles' earliest works from the 1960's cover a broad range of styls and formats, as Charles worked to find his niche and the styles he enjoyed working with the most. Many of these works are coming out of storage for the first time in decades, and many offer both a unique perspective on this prolific artist's early career while seeming, to the uninitiated, like new pieces. They demonstrate how even almost 50 years after Charles began working, he continues to offer bold colors and strokes in works that seem to defy aging. Works like this, whether acquired and hung 40 years ago, or purchased and displayed today, will look to the visitor as fresh and new.
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One of Charles' earliest themes of major interest to many collectors is the Acrylics series. These are bold three-dimensional paintings, with many of the shapes and forms rising off the canvas in dramatic and unique fashion.
In the artist's own words: "I have pioneered in the use of bronze powders suspended in various bronzing fluids as a painting medium. The combination of the bronze and layered acrylic paint has propelled me into a two-year project of creating 40 - 5’ x 5’ paintings that will be a chromatic inter-related series. In some paintings, subtle textures will suggest cosmic upheaval, in others surface tensions will create a depth of field that will draw the viewer into a world of color in nebulous form, with one painting leading to the next as if traveling through time and space into a continuum of color not normally visible."
Initially working with this form in the 1960's, Charles has recently resurrected this art form with new and interesting combinations of color.
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Trailblazing in media as well as in the fantasy of the celestial cosmos has produced the watercolor and acrylic spacescapes that seem to be planets revisited with a finer surveillance. With the instinct of a born colorist, Dix here fulfills the artist's obligation to reveal the world in unexpected ways, discovering new meanings in all the wonders that surround us. He is at home in this many-splendored universe, a voyager upon the strange new seas of a far world. Fiercely individual, Dix explores these distant frontiers that seem too filled with linear and atmospheric perspectives to be purely imaginary. Time and the astronaut have proved much of what he foresees in his emotionally charged paintings.
"I've been interested in space themes for years" he recalls. "some of the early watercolors- the ones that were organic, in light colors- ended up being almost like those photographs taken from space of earth's mineral deposits." Subsequently, his pictures ran the gamut of space phenomena, from abstract impressions of swirling gases and interstellar clouds to skeletonized derelicts and celestial landscapes as precisely rendered as those in Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey".
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Motivated by his intensive involvement with nature and the universe around him, the Surroundings paintings range from impressionistic lily ponds, inspired by Monets' giverny, to Iris and other flowers from Dix's own extensive gardens, aerial landscapes to desert strata, cosmic fires to space objects.
Motivated by his intensive involvement with nature and the universe around him, the Surroundings paintings range from impressionistic lily ponds, inspired by Monets' giverny, to Iris and other flowers from Dix's own extensive gardens, aerial landscapes to desert strata, cosmic fires to space objects.
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The "Bold Strokes" series is a collection of works combining bold sweeps, edys and flows of color, with bright and bold colors. Each painting features just a single or a few complementary colors, yet any two or more of these works complement yet provide ideal contrast for each other in virtually any setting.
The "Bold Strokes" series is a collection of works combining bold sweeps, edys and flows of color, with bright and bold colors. Each painting features just a single or a few complementary colors, yet any two or more of these works complement yet provide ideal contrast for each other in virtually any setting.
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This series of works makes extensive use of geometric shapes, especially the diamond and rectangles, to present the viewer with interesting counterpoint of shape and color. Interlocking shapes work with various color schemes (sometimes reminsicent of clouds, landscape, outer space, etc.) to draw one's focus and eyes both inward and outward.
This series of works makes extensive use of geometric shapes, especially the diamond and rectangles, to present the viewer with interesting counterpoint of shape and color. Interlocking shapes work with various color schemes (sometimes reminsicent of clouds, landscape, outer space, etc.) to draw one's focus and eyes both inward and outward.
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This series of works is in extreme contrast to most of Charles' series. While most of his work is purely abstract and fantasy (space travel, abstract interpretation of the surroundings, etc.), this series presents a unique view of the natural world in several different environments. For example, the piece shown here is obviously of a pond and floating vegetation reminiscent of lillies. Other works show various flower and ornamental vegetation settings, while others present intriguing representations reminiscent of aerial views of landscape.
This series of works is in extreme contrast to most of Charles' series. While most of his work is purely abstract and fantasy (space travel, abstract interpretation of the surroundings, etc.), this series presents a unique view of the natural world in several different environments. For example, the piece shown here is obviously of a pond and floating vegetation reminiscent of lillies. Other works show various flower and ornamental vegetation settings, while others present intriguing representations reminiscent of aerial views of landscape.
Care has been taken to accurately display images within The Charles Dix web site. However, due to individual browser and computer configurations beyond our control, the clarity and exactitude of color in the images is limited.
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With the new century, Charles began creating watercolors. True to form however, Charles' watercolors are bold and new; vivid colors, patterns, and designs. Some incorporate other themes (such as Geometric patterns intermingled with swirls), others have hints of Surroundings, some hint at his early use of acrylics, and and still others can't be placed with any previous theme; colors range from the bright primary colors, while others are entirely calming and embracing. All, however, are "uniquely Dix".
The Charles Dix Gallery
