ART Q and A with HeatHer Morgan
Left page: production stills from In the Heart of the Wood and What I Found There (working title), 2011; this page: video stills from Act 1 for The Temple Theater of the Gruesome King, 2011
Charles E. Roberts, III is an artist currently working in video and residing in Chicago. Your films often come across as paintings come alive. Given your background in painting, do you find yourself composing “like a painter” when you construct your sets or your shots? There is something of a tableau quality to much of the video I’ve done so far. I’m actually trying to move away from that and let things fall where they may. Also, my lighting situations tend to be very unnatural. I use light to throw color more than to illuminate a
realistic sense of space. Maybe they are more like stained glass than paintings. I was never a very good painter. Some of your recent work revolves around varying incarnations of witches. What do these creatures mean to you, what is their power? I’m not interested in witchcraft or any of its spiritual aspects necessarily. I do relate to witches in the folkloric or storybook sense of the word, the reclusive character in the strange little house deep in the forest who spends her days gathering ingredients for the spells she will cast that night. That pretty
much describes my studio practice, albeit in a forest of thrift shops and dollar stores. What are some themes to which you find yourself frequently returning? Right now I can’t seem to escape flora and gore. The blood will not cease flowing and the flowers continue to grow up through the snow. What films have you found most influential over time? All of the works of Sergei Paradjanov have been a significant influence on my video work over the last few years. They are undoubtedly the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Carmelo Bene is an artist who’s films I’ve
Charles E. Roberts, III