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"The modern artist, it seems to me, is expressing an inner
world--in other words--expressing the energy, the motion, and other
inner forces."
-Jackson Pollock
"A
darkening of the figures (yours), a taste of the paint, the rhythm
of the stroke (the brush), and colors suddenly between one's fingers."
-Charles Henzler, on being asked what inspires him.
"To
say that a work of art is spiritual is to attribute to it a universal,
timeless value."
--Peter
Halley
"Yes,
death is hard, and dark with delay before one faces a trace of eternity."
--Rainer Maria Rilke, from the first of the Duino Elegies (trans.
Harry Behn)
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Charles Henzler has been developing his vision
as a painter of abstract and representational expressionism for
over thirty years. His work is expressionist in the most basic sense
of the word; it is made to communicate a feeling, to express the
internal.
It
is exciting to examine closely just how he is able to do this with
such tremendous strength and force. First, we can look to his influences
(beyond a well-rounded art historical education): the movements
of Expressionisism, Surrealism and specific twentieth-century painters
Matisse, R. B. Kitaj, Sam Francis, and Morris Louis. One of the
clear, and delicious, results of these influences is his dramatic
and bold use of color. Add to this his loose use of brush-strokes
and painterly techniques such as thick impasto and occasional dripped
paint. C. H.'s brilliant use of underpainting, sometimes in starkly
constrasting colors, is part of the life-blood of his expression.
In some cases the enormous size of the painting (7' x 8' for example),
contributes to the energy it conveys. The careful placement of subject
matter gives structure to the composition and establishes a clear
visual hierarchy.
All
artists consciously and unconsciously borrow from the past. Some
of the art historical moments that C. H.'s paintings may remind
the viewer of go back as far as the Renaissance. I can't help but
be reminded of St. Peter's in Rome and the Baldacchino by
Bernini when I look at the table legs in Vanity, and that
lovely organic spiral form. And in C. H.'s reaching, twisting torsos
(Frustra, Pillar of Bronze) the motion is typical Renaissance
contraposto. There are shapes from Rococo architecture (see Borromini
or Guarini) popping up in She Leapt, Frustra and Vanity.
The playing-with-perspective in Drinking takes me back to
the Mannerist use of slightly distorted perspective (a lá
Pantormo) that leaves the viewer not knowing quite where they're
standing in relation to the subject.
Then, too, when feeling almost knocked-over by the sense of motion
and energy in these works, the exhuberance and locomotive style
of the Futurist movement comes to mind. Marinetti would positively
celebrate the relentless, headlong drive found in Pillar of Bronze,
The Jade Buddha, Frustra and She Leapt. C. H.'s sensitive
treatment of light-emitting objects in Vanity and Transmutation
fits right in with this almost supernatural sense of force; eery,
compelling, and beautiful. All these associations are secondary,
of course, in looking at C. H.'s fresh and unique visual language.
Other influences informing his instinctive vision have been literary.
Poetry is foremost: French Decadent (Theophile Gautier), 20th c.
American (Louise Bogan, Hart Crane), Chinese (Li Po), and others
who have enjoyed experimenting. These writers have in common a talent
for communicating concepts formed within their deep sources of spirituality.
The
huge sense of energy in C. H.'s paintings (some look as though they
are about to start moving) is mysteriously involved with a suggestion
of something beyond the temporal. His use of archetypes and symbolic
figures (Death, the Devil, Venus ,and Buddha) seeks
to reach a part of the mind and spirit that is universal to human
beings. Strong tension is created also by pitting some of these
archetypal themes one against another. Violent and dark, Death struts
in front of the small and quiet peace of Buddha in Jade Buddha.
Demons and ghouls hover in the background behind gorgeous, colorful,
and life-filled zinnias in Paper Doll. A woman floats in
apparent ecstasy behind a sinister martini- sipping devil in Drinking.
This tension forms a part of the overall dramatic energy of the
paintings, that energy which is inspiring, sometimes other-worldly,
and sometimes even frightening.
--Lisa
Markwart
Editor, CharlesHenzler.com
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"Colors,
the painter's material. Colors in their essence, crying and laughing,
dream and happiness, hot and holy, like songs of love and eroticism,
like hymns and magnificent chorales. Colors vibrate like the
silvery pealing of bells and bronze tones. They herald happiness,
passion and love, soul, blood and death."
--
Emil Nolde
"The
artist, whether poet or mystic or painter, does not seek a symbol
for what is clear to the understanding and capable of discursive
exposition; he realizes that life, especially the mental life, exists
on two planes, one definite and visible in outline and detail, the
other -- perhaps the greater part of life -- submerged, vague, indeterminate.
A human being drifts through time like an iceberg, only partly floating
above the level of the consciousness. It is the aim of the Surrealist,
whether as painter or poet, to try and realize some of the dimensions
and characteristics of his submerged being, and to do this he resorts
to various kinds of symbolism."
--Herbert
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