CW NEW YEAR REFLECTIONS —‘ROADKILL’ PREMIER EXHIBIT
- Charlie Westbrook
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Now that I have a newsletter, I am very much enjoying the fact that I can articulate my artistic vantage point in a more philosophical manner. Please indulge me by sending me a line if the following sparks any contemplations of your own!
My artistic journey follows a reflective arc: the movement from processing personal pain to addressing shared responsibility. “Roadkill” represents my turn outward—taking everything I learned about empathy, resilience, and the responsibility to witness suffering, and directing it toward a crisis larger than my personal story: the environmental catastrophe we're engineering through countless choices that accumulate into species extinction and habitat collapse. |
"Roadkill" works on multiple levels simultaneously—literal (animals killed on roads), systemic (wildlife trapped by infrastructure), philosophical (consequences of unstoppable momentum), and self-reflective (humanity as casualties of our own civilization). This layered meaning is a more mature artistic voice for me.
Through Roadkill, I've become one who uses personal experience as a lens who tries to speak with moral clarity while acknowledging complexity, who makes work that's both aesthetically compelling and ethically engaged through the courage to implicate himself in the critique.
Since my Premier Exhibit of Roadkill at Black Iris Social Club on January 2nd, I have had time to reflect on my great fortune surrounding its success in attendance and the impact my art is making towards others. Below are some of my biggest revelations and take aways:
1. GROWTH IN COURAGE AND CONVICTION
This past exhibit really showed me how much I have grown personally, and as an artist! Certainly, Roadkill has brought out “the courage of my conviction”.
My artistic journey explores the definition of "power" that has evolved from personal survival to collective stewardship. Where my early work asked, "How do I survive this? Where do I find power in suffering?"
Roadkill asks, "What are we doing with the enormous power we have over the natural world? What responsibility comes with that power?"
My artist statement doesn't preach from outside the problem—I speak from within it, using "we" not "they": "We keep building, keep expanding... We are all roadkill now, caught in the momentum of a civilization that cannot stop destroying the only home it has. The difference is the animals didn't choose this. We did."
2. DEMOGRAPHIC RESONANCE
I am very grateful to have such a wonderful turnout for the opening of friends, family and collectors. I really enjoyed the deep discussions with people around the importance of the subject matter. I was very touched that the message was felt.
What has surprised and energized me most is how powerfully younger people—college students, young adults—have connected with Roadkill. They're growing up in a world where environmental anxiety isn't abstract; it's their lived reality. Climate change, habitat loss, species extinction—these aren't distant threats, but defining features of their generation's inheritance.
Young viewers see themselves as trapped. They understand intuitively what I'm saying: they didn't choose the systems they're inheriting, yet they're caught in the consequences of decisions made before they were born. The work validates their anger, their fear, their refusal to accept that this is inevitable.
This exhibit inspires me to transform Roadkill from a single gallery show into a program with regional impact, multigenerational appeal, and the potential for further collaboration with other like-minded artists and conservation groups where our work can matter beyond the gallery—someone(s) making art that participates in the urgent conversations of our time.
3. THE POWER OF COLLABORATION
My partnership with the Maymont Robin’s Nature Center was my first such collaboration. RNC’s presence reinforced a nature positive message, a corn snake and box tortoise as well as information about their local programs related to preservation and conservation around habitat surrounding the James River.
CONNECTING ART TO ACTION - By donating 10% of proceeds to the RNC, I've made my art functional. It's not just aesthetic experience anymore—it raises awareness, generates resources for conservation, builds community around shared values, and gives people ways to participate in solutions.
Black Iris’ was a great venue and I would highly recommend them as an artistic venue especially related to their participation in the collective “First Friday” Art Walk!
If you follow me on social media, you will see we all collaborated on posts and stories and I feel that is why we had such a great turnout! This is what the power of community looks like and I am so excited to have started the year with this energy. This is how we build the world we want to live in!
Huge thanks to Ryan Corrigan for introducing me to Black Iris Gallery and its Artistic Director, Jeff Palumbo, S. Ross Browne for helping me hang the show and of course my wife, Anne. |
MILE MARKER 31 UP FOR AUCTION —
GET YOUR TICKETS for CABIN FEVER
It has been officially announced on the socials by 1708 Gallery which painting I will have auctioned at this event which raises funds for their exhibitions and programs and provides crucial resources for their artists to produce and present artworks and programs for you!
Cabin Fever, 1708's annual art auction, is on Saturday, February 21, 2026 from 7pm to 10pm.
As I mentioned in my last newsletter, this will be my first time having one of my paintings auctioned, and I am excited to see who ends the night with this painting traveling home with them! Hopefully it's one of you reading this!
Go to the below website link to purchase tickets and/or apply to sponsor the event!
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