NEW WEB FEATURE ~ THE CW ART BLOG!!! ~
- Charlie Westbrook
- Apr 28
- 4 min read
If you aren’t already aware per my announcement on Instagram this past April 1st, I have a blog now!! I’d love for you to check it out! I think it is quite sleek!
It’s a perfect space for me to not only chronicle my progress with my art, but for me to share more information and inspiration regarding ways we can increase collective stewardship of our planet and practice the collective wisdom we have garnered over the millennia of our human existence!
Think of the Transcendentalists - Thoreau, Emerson & Whitman!
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For now on the blog, you will find the past newsletters I have released since launching my new website last fall, but I plan to include much more informational, yet entertaining content that I hope inspires the drive we all need to protect our mother nature.
I'm excited to use my blog to energize us to steward the change we want to see in our world. If there are any areas of wildlife preservation or environmental stewardship you feel myself and others should know about, please feel free to send me a line so I can do some research and potentially share with the rest of the online community I see building around expression as activism.
YOU ARE INVITED TO MY EVENT
~ ‘FREE FALL’ on APRIL 30th ~
Speaking of “building community”, I am excited to share that I will be expanding community in the real world on Thursday, April 30th – the day before FALL OF FREEDOM, I will be hosting an event I am naming “FREE FALL” at my Manchester Contemporary Studio & Gallery! This event, which is a part of the official FALL OF FREEDOM’s registered events, will be an mini-opening for local Richmond artists with music and refreshments, as a warm up event for the big event the next day! This event is FREE to attend! On top of myself and my wife, Anne, showing art, I am so honored the following artists have agreed to be a part of this event:
Frankie Slaughter
Hovey Brock
S. Ross Browne
Todd Hale
Cid Cher
We will also have live music provided by Armistead & Andrew!!
This event means a lot to me because activism shows up in many different ways, and I feel this is a special way for us to build strength and camaraderie with our closest neighbors. Moments like these are unique to Richmond—partying alongside art and local music in a carefree relaxed environment with folks who understand the importance of making our voices heard!
Below you will find some information about a few of the artists that will be contributing pieces to FREE FALL. I will share info on the rest of the artists in my next newsletter: |
~ MEET THE ARTISTS ~ |
As stated by the Beverly McNeil Gallery, she is known for her stunning mixed-media works and creates luminous compositions filled with rich color, layered textures, and intricate patterns. By combining materials like paint, encaustic, textiles, and porcelain, her work feels vibrant, fun, and full of life! Based in Richmond, Virginia, Slaughter’s work has been exhibited and collected nationally and internationally.
In her words: “My work is about being in the moment, about how form finds surface and then shifts, about the now that lives in every application of paint, wax, clay, and in the sheer presence of color.
The present keeps stacking—urgently, intuitively, playfully, boldly—on top of itself to become an intersection of texture, line, pattern and light.
My work is not about closure or tidy packages; rather, it braves the unrefined chaos, the spinning fans of the pinwheel, where the only language is this one: a visual expression which urges the viewer to stay again and again in the imperfect but beautiful moment.”
Hovey Brock
Hovey Brock is a visual artist and writer with a focus on climate who lives and works in upstate New York and Richmond, VA. In his words:“I am currently working on abstract watercolors and a project which I call Crazy River, which consists of layered ruminations in paint and words on the climate crisis in the Western Catskills.
My abstract watercolors come out of a decades-long involvement with color, taking their cues from Minimalism, the New York School and Cézanne.
Crazy River draws its material from memories, epiphanies, and stories about the West Branch of the Neversink in the western Catskills. “Neversink” is a corruption of the river’s original Lenapé name, which means something like “crazy river.” The paintings are executed on panel and mesh with acrylics. The project asks the question: What happens when environmental catastrophes upend a landscape you know and love?” |
S. Ross Browne
In Browne's words: “My work is a series of contextual allegories that reveal its overt and hidden socio-political and historical messages in figurative paintings that challenge notions about the collective journeys of all people but with a focus on people of color. I paint these collective, personal and often historical (affirmed and disputed) allegories, giving them a framework to challenge the struggles of identity, power and self actualization.
My subjects are in classical pictorial representations using delineations of factual chronicles and imagined mythology replete with persuasive imagery that defies the common visual library and the often polemic misrepresentations of diasporic people. I use contrasting narratives with symbolism hidden in plain view that feeds discourse in an attempt to shed light on the weaponization of race and it's hypocritical progeny. |
I implore you to follow my fellow artists on social and check out their website for more on their expression as activism! Info on the remainder of the artists to come in the next newsletter!
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