Art as Storytelling
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Detail: "The Boy and the Blackbird"
Mixed Media on canvas
24 x 48 inches
Char Baxter 2024
Char Baxter
My stories are told through paint and torn paper, feathers and thread, metal keys, photographs, old letters and bits of nature. My art is informed by a lifetime of living - with all of the joys, sorrows and everything in between - taking form in a visual narrative on canvas.
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Detail: "Blackbird Knows"
Mixed Media on canvas
24 x 48 inches
Char Baxter 2024
My Work
When people ask me what medium I work in - oils, acrylics, watercolor - I always hesitate to respond because I don't want to limit myself. I work in so many different media and objects, that I would have to say everything.
Storytelling is at the heart of my work. The piece that I just completed this summer is a good example. Acrylic paint, Mozart's musical score, torn watercolor paper painted gold and stitched to canvas, rolled scrolls of antiqued papers tied to the base of a thick branch which, in turn, is sewn to the canvas with artificial sinew. And from its twiggy arm dangles a heavy metal key, keenly watched by a feathered blackbird. And below it, a padlock.
Titled "Blackbird Knows", this is visual storytelling.
What does the blackbird know?
Why the key? The padlock?
And what is the streak of blue sky seen through windows cut into the gold?
When you stand in front of this artwork, these are the questions I hope you ask yourself.
Then as an storytelling artist, I will have succeeded.