Charlie Sheard

Charlie Sheard’s interests as a painter lie in the origin of painting in caves, in the history and development of techniques and forms, and in the unbroken historical continuity of painting as a bodily practice. For Sheard, painting is not primarily a theoretical or an intellectual discourse, it is a bodily meditation on Being. That is, it is physical and sensual by its very Nature. This original nature existed long before Thought. Sheard’s recent paintings are focused on bodily energy, on sensual forms and surfaces, and on the nature or Being of painting itself. Heidigger said that the Work of Art has its own Being.

“Abstraction is the mystical branch of the art of painting. It is my experience that the painting makes itself; the artist’s job is to allow it to do so. Schopenhauer said that all art aspires to the condition of music; Nietzsche said that the birth of tragedy is from the spirit of music itself. Pure Abstraction is the Music of Painting, that is, the will of Painting itself. Abstract Painting attains to the spirit of music, which is the same as saying that Abstract Painting attains to the essence of Painting. The Abstract painter works with the inner principles of painting rather than with her outer forms, which is only possible if the artist has great familiarity with the techniques, forms and history of painting.”

• Charlie Sheard