Charles Caldemeyer: The “Structures” Exhibit. Box Heart Art Gallery

 

Charles Caldemeyer is an artist interested in reality composed of contrasting forms. The paradoxical of reality is very clear to the viewer when they look at his current exhibit “Structures.” The images are layered and compelling. They typically have three regions of “existence” or reality. The figures are symbolic and challenging as the intermix the metaphoric with their dress and sometimes the suspected or assumed gender due to that dress. There is an “Inception” feel to some of the paintings. It is as if the dream and the waking state are intermingled. The viewer does have control over when one begins and one ends.

Caldemeyer’s work is binary. It deals with comparisons and contrasts of light and dark and the feelings of warm and cool . The figures have differing tonals to them and are clearly societal constructs in some instances from bygone eras. Their clothes and the activities they engage in hall-mark that. There are also invented figures where two divergent dynamics are intermingled. There is a tinge of the ironic in some of the intermingling. Caldemeyer challenges the rigid structures of the cognitive and creates what could be called a multi-leveled dreamscape in painting after painting. It is as if the viewer goes back through regression to prior eras and yet still sees vestiges of other eras inculcated within Caldemeyer’s paintings. Inference is important with Caldemeyer’s work more so than concrete statements. The viewer must release themselves from making resolute statements in terms of meaning and interpretation because it may shift. But, to inteprete is clearly invited.

Caldemeyer is a Washington D.C. self-taught painter who likes to investigate the psychological and cultural worlds through his art. He is inventive in his work, brave and challenging of what is normative visually and in terms of  pairings of aspects. His work will be at the Box Heart Gallery from now until April 28, 2012. The Box Heart Gallery is at 4523 Liberty Avenue Pittsburgh, Pa 15224.