Unlocked Chris Charteris - Unlocked By Rebecca Hamid, July 2009 Chris Charteris is an artist whose medium is nature itself and whose preferred inspiration is derived from the outdoors. He creates sculptures that evoke sky, air, water, sea and the earth. Charteris’s art also draws on the ever present human presence and interactions with the land. "I want my work to be able to reflect the land which has become synonymous with how I live and who I am," says Chris, who has been living with his family in a very special part of New Zealand in the Coromandel for the past 7 years. The soft-spoken, secluded Charteris is often hard at work making discrete sculptures out of stone, natural or quarried, or bone, or compiling combinations of loose rock formations, strung together to form monumental oversize necklaces, linkages with the coastal shorelines. Often materials for these sculptures have been grounded smooth by the relentless daily tides and moving sands and scorched clean and bright by the antipodean sun. The aesthetics of the weathering and the marks inscribed by time and natural activity on the materials the artist collects imbues them with meaning, presenting Charteris with the possibility of expressing universal ideas and responses. Charteris's ideas draw upon the underappreciated relationships between light, colour, movement, balance, and fluidity of form in the natural world. This makes his sculptures lively and surprising fresh works of art. Some of Charteris's sculptures are miraculous natural installations -- stone tributes that stand solid and tease our human resolve and understanding of the environments we recognise and are drawn to. Others are intimate, and often tactile, imparting that rare quality that they have been created just for you. Rather than telling you 'what' Charteris has sculptured them into, they let you listen. Like a Vemeer painting they can impart their meaning to a thousand 'secret viewers'.(1) Charteris's art practice includes the fossicking and salvaging of materials, either from the open landscape, shorelines and riverbeds, or from quarries. In this sense Charteris's work can be compared with assemblage artists, like Rosalie Gascoigne, Don Driver, Ralph Hotere and Bill Culbert, producing both works as salvage operations and as sculptured objects. As with these artists Charteris's art reflects his meditations on his homeland, New Zealand, and other Pacific Island landforms with which he has a close identity. This heritage and identity enables him to draw upon and continue the rich tradition of landscape art. "I am often inspired by searching the river beds or the beaches of Aoterora New Zealand. I may see certain beautiful stones lying around. If I am intending to create one of my large stone necklaces I may have to search for many hours to find exactly the right number and certain shapes, colours, textures or forms that I need. It may be that the stones or other materials I am searching for I have seen before, as they resemble traditional objects from the past of my experiences of our different Pasifika and Maori cultures" says Chris. The artist's arrangements of natural materials function as metaphors of landscape. Charteris explores the possibilities of his medium making non-literal connections between art and the land with which he identifies. The stone, bone and rock formations are sanded, polished and sometimes engraved to evoke their place of origin. The limited scale of the finished sculpture reflects a generalisation for expansive land forms. The quality of the material, its shape, colour, natural contours, texture and ambiguities reflect the qualities of a recognised and cherished environment. "As I chisel or sand a piece, I am conscious of the material and its original form as well as the new shape I want the object to be transformed into. It is an evolving process as I enter into a dialogue with the materials and the shape they will become. This is how my mind is working, when I pick up a stone from a desolate beach. There is a strong element of meditation. This is integral to the process of my choosing, collecting and sculpting the materials into the finished art form". Preferring sculptures that are simultaneously raw and polished Charteris's sculptures in natural materials are often highlighted as if to say that a natural object's pure qualities must be regarded with the utmost respect. At the same time these sculptures reflect the artist's understanding of the meticulously arranged forms; so as to convey a dynamic sense of their inherent life forces, beauty, and primordial energy. With his whale bone and stone works, for example, Charteris presents one or more segments of the same material, free standing on a plinth or fixed to a wall. The viewer marvels at the beauty of the bone, or stone's natural curves and angles, yet cannot help but notice the visual suggestion of the unique form the sculpture takes on. Waterfall 2009, references Colin McCahon’s abstract waterfall forms in stone, applying a lightness of hand and aesthetic appreciation of the medium which the painter himself would have aspired too. The uniqueness of the form remains even when the sculpture has been worked with more intricate details in order to reference traditional cultural forms and objects such as a breastplate or lei (necklace), or in the case of Pacific Blade 2009 with an abstract engraving. Peacemaker 2009 and On a Journey 2009 have been sculptured from natural materials, Andesite, sourced from a the local Whangapoua quarry. Peacemaker has smoothed edges and outlines forming an ambiguous shape, vaguely resembling a human form and evocative of human-like acts or emotions. On a Journey is more amoeboid. Whereas Peacemaker has a strong sense of imminent movement, suggested by the shape of the stone and the counterbalance of curved surfaces atop the vertical edges. Here the upright form projects a material solidness, but also a human like firmness and resolve; the former a closer reflection of the material from which it is made, and the later, anticipating movement and human like qualities in the transformation from it's inanimate form. Warriors 2009 achieves a similar sentient and inanimate ambiguity as well as a strong sense of manifesting the human condition. This is in part due to the coupling of the varying sized forms and the musing stance of each component in relation to the others. Creating air and the negative space is central to Chris Charteris's trajectory. In adopting the found materials and applying his unique arrangements or compositions the artist intentionally accentuate this quality. Again, the connections between the art of assemblage artists Rosaline Gascoigne, Robert Rauschenberg and Marcel Duchamp, or sculptors Henry Moore and Jean Arp are apparent(2). Their art was similarly inspired by the creation of the spaces between objects, or their juxtaposition, accentuating the negative space. Describing the underlying purpose of her assemblages of found objects and materials Gascoigne said "I am trying to create air. This is something very hard to do" (3). The inspiration for several of Charteris's sculptures suggests space, flight and air. This is particularly so with sculptures Unfolding 2009 and Blade 2009. Stillness 2009, The Key 2009 and Unearthed 2009 are more elevated and grounded in their articulation. The smoothness of the outer lines and the inner cut-out shapes accentuate the negative spaces creating the sensations of both containment and expansiveness as well as the abstract connations of the unknown, hope and the existential quest. Chris Charteris' working process increasingly relies on his instincts. This involves letting go of the control he usually exercises, experimenting a lot with textures and contrasts, and exploring ways to achieve new results. An important part of his creative process has always been to stretch himself to find an edge where there is new energy, innovation and impact. The forms he creates reflect the reciprocity of the artist/medium relationship. "Since my work relies strongly on my intuition, I sometimes do the unexpected. I work from my subconscious," says Chris. "I search for interesting materials and think, hear or see something interesting which I can apply to that inherent form and beautify of those materials. Then I incorporate this into my art. I like to explore a wide variety of possibilities with materials but never to transform them into something unrecognisable or completely devoid of their inherent qualities and form”. With some of his sculptural works Charteris explores this artist/medium reciprocal relationship at another level. Here the navigation of spaces between, around and within each sculpture is integral to how the sculptures relate to each other, to their environment and to their creator. With the series work Unlocked 2009 the forms are punctuated by substantial breathing spaces and variations of stanza so that they have the cadence of a verse or song imparting a treasured meaning or wisdom of old. Las Vegas art historian Libby Lumpkin once said that the authority of an art works resides in the richness and complexity of our response to it. On one level Charteris's sculptures challenge us to look closer and dig deep for a thoughtful response. In doing this we may find a complexity of meaning that can be uplifting or leave us troubled. Either response should raise more questions than it answers. Alternatively these sculptures can be approached by anticipating a simple, intuitive and child-like response. By simply appreciating the aesthetic of the works and the immediate emotions and feelings they unlock, these sculptures invite us to enjoy that moment. (1) Paton Justin, How to Look at a Painting, Awa Press 2006, p 36 (2) Rosalie Gascoigne: Plain Air, p 45 City Gallery Wellington, Victoria Press 2004 (3) Rosalie Gascoigne: Plain Air, p 21 City Gallery Wellington, Victoria Press 2004 About Rebecca Hamid: Rebecca Hamid is the Director of RH Art and The Gallery at Woollaston. She is also a Trustee of the Nelson Sculpture Trust and a Director of a consultancy business offering project management of strategic and business planning.