Michael Ray Charles

 

When it comes to Michael Ray Charles' art, a past is often brought up that many try to forget.

Charles mainly works with paint, and delves into themes such as violence, reminiscence, and what is considered beautiful or ugly.

 

 

What most of Charles' paintings depict, though, are racial stereotypes, specifically for African Americans. Recurring images such as Sambo, Mammies, Blackface, and other iconic misrepresentations of that time appear quite often in his works.

Charles' pieces have an ad-like quality to them, as if they were meant to be in a magazine or as a poster. The colors used were loud and bright and the paintings themselves are very character centered. Charles' works are probably not unlike what you would find at the time these paintings were influenced by.

Although Charles' paintings are reminders of a time of great prejudice, he takes it as an opportunity to learn how these images came to be and to serve as a warning to not forget this time, but to never repeat it.

 

 

Information provided by:

 

"Michael Ray Charles." Art21. PBS, n.d. Web. 8 Feb. 2014.