Background
Alan Charlton was born in 1948 in Sheffield, United Kingdom.
Sheffield School of Art
Camberwell School of Art in London
Sheffield School of Art
Camberwell School of Art in London
Royal Academy School
Alan Charlton was born in 1948 in Sheffield, United Kingdom.
Alan Charlton studied at Sheffield School of Art during 1965 – 1966. Then he attended Camberwell School of Art in London in 1966 – 1969. Finally, he visited Royal Academy Schools in London in 1966 – 1972.
Alan first showed his grey monochromes at Konrad Fischer Galerie in 1972. As with others who have pursued the primal through paint across the last century, Charlton had already begun to paint monochromes two if not three years earlier as a student, and made certain decisions about what he would allow into his practice and what would be kept out. Charlton wanted to make a painting out of the most ordinary and basic materials. He wanted a painting that was abstract, honest, direct, urban, pure, simple, silent, and absolute. His first canvases were notched with serial permutations of square apertures that took their measure from the 4.5 cm module of the painting’s edge. After working through other industrial colors – red, brown, black – Charlton settled on grey for its promise of stillness and ordinary status as material.
Charlton treats each element of a work equally: from concept to the building of a painting, painting itself, its packing (he builds their individual boxes with equal attention and care), to transporting and installing the works, and designing the catalog. Wood, canvas, shape, size: all are equal in conceptual weight and treatment. This is not a feature, or fetish of a painterly craft. It’s an expression of Charlton’s work ethic and the conceptual base of his practice. All this is, most simply put, his job. And he treats it as such.
Charlton has never managed to bring assistants into his studio and divide or rationalize his production. Workers are more likely to share their lunch and holidays than their tools; for Charlton, wood canvas, paint, and cardboard are his tools. Charlton’s work has redefined the traditional relationship between artwork and viewer, because, in most cases, the paintings are not specially made for a concrete space. In fact, the works adapt to changing conditions of different environments and this is due to the accuracy of Charlton’s canvases. Hence, his paintings offer very different visual experience depends on the space in which they are located.
After removing any minor detail, Charlton's paintings draw attention to the space in which they are located because of their sobriety and balance. This dialogue between art and space generate a new relationship between the work of art and viewers. The precision of Charlton's painting contrasts with the variable conditions of different environments in which they are presented. Because of that reason, the paintings offer different experience depending on the space in which they are shown.
Charlton’s work forms part of some of the most important Museums and public collection such as Arts Council Collection (London, United Kingdom), Contemporary Art Collection ‘La Caixa’ (Barcelona, Spain), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, France), Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France), Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Castello di Rivoli (Turin, Italy), Museum Abteiberg, (Mönchengladbach, Germany), el MuHKA Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst (Antwerp, Belgium) and Tate Modern (London, United Kingdom). He currently lives and works in London, England.
For Alan, an ethic, when treated as such, takes on a political value and tone. Charlton’s paintings are of the left. They are socialist.
Alan painted mainly in grey because of the color’s great potential and expressiveness. Far from being monotone and unexciting Charlton’s works concentrate on physicality, uniformity and method and they evoke a profound sense of the painting as a spatial entity.
Quotations: "I want my paintings to be: abstract, direct, urban, basic, modest, pure, simple, silent, honest, absolute."
