Charles Koegel: Color Maps

CHARLES KOEGEL COLORMAPS

Untitled

2009

Acrylic and oil on canvas

42 x 48 in / 106.7 x 121.9 cm

White Lotus

2010

Acrylic and oil on canvas

70 x 62 in / 177.8 x 157.5 cm

CHARLES KOEGEL : CITY AS STUDIO Charles Koegel’s paintings are in a tug of war with their own surfaces. In “Who Knows” and “In Bloom” (both 2010) grass appears to grow from under the paint, disrupting the hard-edged geometry of the picture plane. On a closer look, the grass is actually attached to the surface and painted green. Questions arise from this strange juxtaposition: what is more “real”, the grass, or the abstract composition, and how are they in dialogue with one another? To intrigue us further, Koegel layers enamel paint over a ground of oil pigment, which produces a pattern of cracks across the surface. The paintings are prematurely “aged” in this manner, and the impact is disorientating—are we looking at a Modern abstract painting from 1955 or a contemporary work? The choice of enamel house paint is perhaps a nod to the Abstract Expressionists who pioneered the use of industrial paints as mediums.

The city plays a huge, if sometimes hidden, role in Koegel’s practice. He is attracted to the gridded-glass of Manhattan’s Seagram Building, but also finds visual inspiration in an ancient wall covered in layers of paint, graffiti, and scraps of advertising. This egalitarian approach to the urban landscape is something that comes naturally to the artist, a New York City native who witnessed first-hand the changes that gentrification, brought to his downtown neighborhood. “Footprints” (2015), one of the newer paintings in this exhibition has an appealingly disjointed geometry of boxes and rectangles in maroon, pink, grey, and creamy yellows and whites. In this work the city is not as literalized as a paint-plastered wall, or a bit of concrete with grass growing in its cracks. It is something more mysterious, refined, and personal.

-Nora Griffin, New York 2016

Here’s What’s Left

2011

Oil and collage on canvas

62 x 70 in / 157.5 x 177.8 cm

Poppies with TV Antenna

2012

Acrylic, oil and collage on canvas

68 x 68 in / 172.7 x 172.7 cm

Beige, Yellow, Gold

2013

Acrylic and oil on canvas

49 x 83 in / 124.5 x 210.8 cm

Footprints

2015

Oil on canvas

38 x 38 in / 96.5 x 96.5 cm

Long Lost

2008

Acrylic and oil on canvas

70 x 62 in / 177.8 x 157.5 cm

In Bloom

2010

Mixed media on canvas

70 x 62 in / 177.8 x 157.5 cm

Emulsion

2016

oil on canvas

20 x 28 in / 50.8 x 71.1 cm

Best Kept Secret

2008

Acrylic and oil on canvas

52 x 42 in / 132 x 106.7 cm

CHARLES KOEGEL Born 1980

New York City

Education 2013 Columbia University, Teachers College,

New York, NY. MA in Art Education 2008 Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. MA in Fine Art 2003 Trinity College, Hartford, CT. BA in Art History

Solo Exhibitions 2016 TBD, Waterhouse and Dodd, New York City, NY 2010 Any Colour You Like, Slate Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2010 Summer’s Gonna Hurt You, Dimensions Variable,

Miami, FL Group Exhibitions 2016 Traverse, William Holman Gallery, New York City, NY 2015 Linear Language, Greene County Council on the

Arts, Catskill, NY 2013 Natural History, Skylight Gallery, New York City, NY 2013 6’x9’, National Arts Club, New York City, NY 2013 Part of the Story, Lower East Side Printshop Gallery,

New York, NY 2013 Unhinged, Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2012 Pattern and Decoration, Accola Griefen Gallery,

New York City, NY 2011 Home, 196 Guernsey Street, Brooklyn, NY 2011 Town and Country, 320 Studios, New York City, NY 2011 Geometric Days, Exit Art, New York City, NY 2011 It’s All Good, Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2010 Continuing Color Abstraction, The Painting Center,

New York City, NY 2009 Group Show, Slate Gallery, New York City, NY 2009 Terminal Signal, Brooklyn Art Alternative,

Brooklyn, NY 2008 The Labyrinth Wall, Exit Art, New York City, NY 2006 New York Narratives; Works on Paper, Oakland

University Art Gallery, Rochester, MI

Awards 2012 Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder Resident 2011 Myers Art Award, awarded by Teachers College 2011 LMCC Swing Space Grant 2010 Fountainhead Resident 2009 Vermont Studio Center Resident 2002 Anna Helman Prize, awarded by Trinity College for

Painting Collections 2013 Lower East Side Printshop Collection 2011 Myers Art Collection, Teachers College Press 2013

2011

2010

2003

Earthward Bound, November 11th, 2013, The Huffington Post The Upheaval of History, April 6, 2011, The Indypendent Trent’s Top Picks, November 19, 2010, Williamsburg Greenpoint News New Theses Dazzle, April 29, 2003, The Trinity Tripod

960 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10021 +1 (212) 717-9100 newyork@waterhousedodd.com www.waterhousedodd.com

Catalogue published by Waterhouse & Dodd Text by Nora Griffin Printed by Paper Presentation, NYC Photography by the artist and Stephanie Black Design by Stephanie Black All artwork and images copyright of the artist