Biography

Moved from Faversham to East London and paints "professionally" 9-5

16.3.65 Born, Evanston, Illinois
1976-82 Kent College, Canterbury
1982-84 Dropped out, signed on and smoked dope in Canterbury
1984-85 Canterbury Technical College, Pre-Foundation Course
1985-89 Maidstone College of Art: Foundation Art and BA (Hons) Fine Art - Painting
1989-92 Royal Academy Schools, Diploma in Painting. Awarded The Silver Medal for Painting (top student) and the Prize for Anatomical Drawing
1992-97 Part-time cab driver, art lecturer/artist
1996 Elected to NEAC (New English Art Club). Now on the committee.
1997- Full-time artist
1999 Founder member of The Stuckists
2001-05 Represented by The Sheen Gallery
2004-05 One man show at Bakersfield Museum, California
2007 Elected to the Royal Watercolour Society

Regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy Summer Show, Mercury Gallery. Royal Overseas League Travel Scholarship. The Richard Ford Award for Study in Spain.

Collections include Alan Howarth MP and Lily Savage.

Enjoys cooking pasta. Eats a lot. Favourite food: pasta. Put on weight (because of pasta).

"My RA training has been invaluable, but I always feel uncomfortable when people with my training laugh at those who haven't but are still creative and sincere. I value their paintings."

"Large and Pleasant Living Room" painting

"My tag for this series of paintings is 'Big Brother meets Vuillard'. Like all my paintings, this is an invented space peopled with invented characters - they seem to sort of come to me, and when I've finished painting them, I realise they have some sort of relationship with real characters and events. Essentially it's all to do with tensions and hidden autobiographical details. "I paint in the easiest way I can - in oils on canvas. I work on different canvases in different states and rotate them. Generally they are worked from generalised almost abstract forms into more particular definitions. Often the subject comes out of the instinctive composition. Many years of training have now given me a repertoire that enables me to create in the same way, but directly from my imagination. I've copied the Old Masters in the past and learnt from them, which now allows me to invent my own means."

Links

Web site www.charleswilliamsartist.com

Text based on The Stuckists Punk Victorian book (National Museums Liverpool)