Charles Eckart
Strawberry Lemonade , 2019
65 x 45
in
oil on canvas
In February of 2020, just one short month before we were required to shut the doors of the gallery, we had a glorious exhibition of paintings by Charles Eckart. The date was specifically chosen to coincide with the his 85th birthday on February 2, 2020. It was a dual celebration – one of the artist’s birth and the other of a 60 year career dedicated to paintings that in his own words, “do not attempt to replicate, but to reflect the complexity and beauty of the natural world.” The title of the show, “For the Love of Paint,” speaks to Eckart’s devotion to the expressive powers of pure pigment as he incorporates layer upon layer of paint strokes in endlessly satisfying compositions.
Central to the exhibition was his painting Strawberry Lemonade. Prominently displayed in the front window and the largest work in the show, it drew people in with its lively palette of yellows, oranges and reds.
Over the years, Eckart has truly expanded the limits of what he can do with paint, engaging the viewers’ senses with rich pure generous applications of color - clean, dense and vibrant - often using much as 20 pounds of pigment in a single work. In works like these, Eckart’s concerns are not with direct depiction, but with the more transcendental sensations, the awe and visual vibration that accompanies looking at something indefinably moving.
