Charlie Oscar Patterson | Interview

CREATIVE FORCE CHARLIE

Yet another one of our amazing artists is here for a chat! A big welcome to Charlie, the man who treats colours as musical notes, with tempo and rhythm, to elicit an emotional response from the viewer. Brilliant stuff!

Charlie Oscar Patterson's artwork is rooted in his fascination with colour and minimal forms. With a background in design and having studied at Chelsea College of Art & Design, his work is informed by a structured, gridded approach. Charlie works on small-scale relief paintings and large-scale murals. His 3D pieces are an exploration into the relationship between form and colour.

  • What changed for you creatively when we were in lockdown? 
  • I started working in a new studio at the end of February so I had a lot more space over lockdown to really spread out and work on bigger pieces. It's my first space away from my home and it's really more of a workshop so it's nice to be able to just make a mess and leave it.
  • What do you find to be the most challenging part about the work you do right now?
  • The building stage is probably the most challenging, making everything structurally sound whilst not making each piece weigh a tonne.
  • What are the main tools that make up your current workflow? 
  • Well I make a few of my pieces in different ways some are Cnc'd out of plywood and some use stretcher bars with wooden structures built in. I'd say I use your standard hammer, drill,  jigsaw, router, stretching pliers, scissors, staple gun then brushes etc.
  • What is your favourite tool in the studio? 
  • I actually recently bought a new tool that I didn't know existed which is definitely my new favourite, it's an electric file but it looks like a miniature belt sander, so much easier than using your standard rotary sander.
  • Being a practicing artist, what do you think would come as a surprise to people in terms of what the actual work includes? 
  • I guess the thing I find funny is how I refer to my work as paintings but really the painting aspect only takes about 10% of the time to make each piece. They are much more sculptures than paintings.
  • Is anyone in your family an artist or a creative of any type?
  • Not by trade but my Granddad tought me a lot of woodwork when I was younger on his foot pedalled fret saw, and my Dad enjoys a spot of water colour. 
  • If you didn't study design for some crazy reason, what else interests you?
  • I think I would have enjoyed doing carpentry, it would have been a useful skill to have now to be honest and I've always like making things out of wood.
  • Do you have phases where you become disconnected from your work, or burnt out on what you’re doing? How do you deal with that and continue to create during those times? 
  • I like to change up styles and paint completely different things when I lose interest in something I'm doing. I find that tends to encourage some ideas I hadn't thought about before. I like a lot of abstract and figurative paintings so I just paint things that have nothing to do with my work and see where that leads me. 
  • Have you developed routines or a structure for yourself that's helped you be the most efficient, or is it more of going with the flow? 
  • I build my works in stages, so I'll start say a new body of 10 paintings and do all the wood work first, then the stretching, then priming and painting. I find it to be most efficient to have the studio setup for one task at a time or everything starts to get on top of each other.
  • What is your favourite piece of work and why?
  • Of my own work I don't really have a set favourite but I have a soft spot for 'No.1-9 Orange and Raw' from my show with Protein Studios last year. It was a key painting in the transition of my more layered shape pieces to my new more minimal relief works.
  • One last hard question, fave and least fave colour?
  • Least favourite is purple, like a Cadbury purple purple, I don't mind using it in paintings I'm just not a massive fan. Favourite colour is very hard, I have a lot of time for green and pink, sometimes I really like orange and currently I'm really enjoying using black.