WestonArts Highlight Local Artist Charles Douthat

Charles Douthat a graduate of Stanford University and the University of California. He’s a self-taught painter who works within the traditions of abstract expressionism and lyrical abstraction. I paint in acrylics, usually on canvas, but sometimes on recycled surfaces. My paintings have appeared in many local group exhibitions and juried shows.

My paintings rarely start with a plan, idea or image. Usually they begin with a personal feeling or restlessness and an empty canvas and a brush and tube of paint I pick up more or less at random. I never know where I’m going or what I’m looking for; I’m simply trying to make marks on canvas that strike me as moving or beautiful or full of potential. Often in a painting’s early stage I’ll create an appealing shape or line or color combination which out of uncertainty I’ll want to save, though I know these early stages alone don’t make a painting. Strangely, I’ve found that only when I sacrifice this appealing area by painting on or over it, is something more lasting and original released, something which belongs both to the painting’s unique physical presence and my mixed feelings which are seeking expression. It’s often through these moments of letting go that my paintings begin to take final shape and I see the forms that are waiting to be discovered. I’ve come to believe that some part of the depth and feel of my paintings is generated by the remainders left visible or half-visible on canvas of these earlier stages that have been sacrificed. You might call these remainders the ghosts of the not-quite-beautiful things I’ve destroyed.

Learn more about artist in Weston at WestonArts - www.westonarts.org

For more details on Charles paintings please visit his website at http://charlesdouthat.com/paintings/