Charlesthomas Eaton: Statement from the artist project show, April 2007

Charlesthomas is a native son of Maine and, since 1963, a resident of Chicago. He studied at the Boston Museum School and the Art Institute of Chicago, but is largely self-taught.

Eaton has worked in many media but says he is a conceptual artist:'That idea and process is the art, all the rest is artifact.'

 

Some highlights:

Eaton was the founder and director of WPA Gallery of Environmental Art, the first art gallery in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood. The gallery, which operated in the early 1980s, ran on the premise that artists are the best judge of art: 'That a dynamic-dialectic* will produce a self-sustaining governing system based on one's vested self-interest.' Artists who participated in WPA’s 4 open group shows chose 3 artists among them to participate in an annual survey show, and likewise those 12 chose 3 from among them for one-person shows the following year. *Each artist had 3 votes.

'I tend to do large scale work, either in physical size or work that is based on time and abstracting reality' [ie. WPA Gallery].

 

Eaton’s latest work is based on digital photography, specifically panoramas. While the subjects vary from urban waterfronts to skylines, landscapes, and parks, the subject of the work is 2D space and focus. Most of the works in this exhibit are based on images taken in Chicago, San Antonio, and Maine between 2004 and 2007.

Each panorama consists of multiple images that are composed into one massive image. They are printed on archival paper and laminated with an UV protecting film. The large-scale pieces are done as 'one-of-a-kind' and are meant to hang as wall graphics (flat to a wall and removable). Most are available as signed and numbered limited editions in smaller sizes. See listing sheet.

 

Current Projects:

Division Street USA
Annually photograping all the buildings (and storefronts) on the north and south sides of Division Street from Leavitt Street [2200 west] to Milwaukee Avenue [1599 west]. Started in 2003, this is an ongoing project.

 

Farmers Market
Annual 360 degree panorama from a center point inside the Farmers Market. Started in 2002, this is an ongoing project I hope to complete this year.

 

Future Project:

To re-shoot 'The Otter Pond' on Swans Island, Maine, this time, 2 or 3 times each day over a longer period of time [one month], combining the images into a 54" high x 360 degree presentation that will take the viewer [starting on the outside] from dawn to dusk [ending on the inside] on a continuous curving wall.