PAINTER CHARLIE GOODWIN'S PAINTINGS SING AT ANDERSON-SOULE GALLERY

    /24-7PressRelease/ - CONCORD, NH, March 20, 2006 - On Wednesday, March 29, 2006, the Anderson-Soule Gallery opens Radically Simple: New Works by Charlie Goodwin, an exhibition featuring approximately 15 works by Warner, New Hampshire-based artist Charlie Goodwin. An opening reception will be held on Friday, March 31, 2006, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. Radically Simple will remain on display at Anderson-Soule Gallery through Saturday, April 29, 2006.
Charlie Goodwin's current body of work represents a new avenue of exploration for this veteran artist, a departure from all that has gone before. For more than thirty years, Goodwin has drawn his inspiration from the 'subject,' and now, suddenly, he is working entirely in the abstract. Whereas once Goodwin painted landscapes and still lifes, albeit with an increasing tendency toward abstraction, his newest body of work functions entirely in the realm of formal concerns. Color, line area balance, contrast, texture, physicality, mass, weight, brightness/darkness, color and color representation, stroke, transparency/opacity—these are the concepts that now capture his imagination. "I don't find much difference between working with or without representation," confesses Goodwin. "Whether there is or is not a subject, I am more concerned with whether the painting tells some visual story in a compelling way."
Goodwin need not be concerned; his newest creations speak beautifully; indeed they virtually sing with color and energy. In Reef, for example, circles of color burst from the lower left quadrant of the image, dissolving into a solid mass of liquid gold in the center of the canvas, and then resolving once more into a nest of carefully described roundels in another corner. The resulting image is a sonnet to life and light. "A lot of it is about paint, and all the 'vocabulary' paint brings to a visual story," asserts Goodwin. "[The act of] casting aside representations has given me room to employ paint in more of its manifestations: big paint, small paint. More meaty and massive. More or less textural. Almost always more 'painty.'"
When asked to describe his thoughts while painting, Goodwin tosses out a series of sentence fragments that underscore the dichotomy of his methods. "Ten or twenty thousand circles, carefully non-placed," muses Goodwin, "party, riot, meditation. Order versus chaos. Definition versus mystery." Clearly, though Goodwin's imagery has moved from the figurative to the abstract, the structure of representation remains in the back of his mind. In the end, Goodwin is not altogether sure where these painterly musings will lead. "For me it's an unfolding," confesses Goodwin. "This work reveals myriad possibilities. Something as limited as a simple kind of mark repeated too many times to count shouldn't be fruitful, but it seems to be. Its limitations have become an asset."
Charlie Goodwin has studied at New York's Germaine School of Photography, the former Manchester Institute of Arts and Sciences (now known as the New Hampshire Institute of Art), and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Since completing the Studio Diploma Program at the MFA, Goodwin's art has been featured in a number of exhibitions in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. His works may be found in a number of private collections as well as the corporate collection of Fidelity Investments.
Also featured during March and April at Anderson-Soule Gallery are the imaginative works of Jon Brooks and sleek, contemporary art furniture of Brian Sargent. Both artists are members of the New Hampshire Furniture Masters Association.

Anderson-Soule Gallery is a professional art gallery and consulting firm representing local, regional, and nationally recognized artists. The gallery offers a full range of consulting services to residential and corporate clients seeking original art, limited edition prints, and reproductions to enhance their homes and businesses. It is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday and Friday until 8 p.m., and by appointment. The gallery is located at Two Capital Plaza in Concord, New Hampshire; phone (603) 228-3800. Visit the gallery online at www.anderson-soulegallery.com

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