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CHARLES DuBACK High Street Gallery Please click images above for full view.
The body of work that I've created over the years falls right in line with a quote made by Picasso when he said, "I see my work as an ongoing family in which no members looks identical. In the continuity of my ideas, what is important is that the elements which are seen to exist in my work should be viewed as an organic whole, and not chopped up into arbitrary periods without my consent."
Work that I engage in today is no longer an analogue of a visual experience of Nature, as it once may have been, but has become instead an operational process. To the people who say that my work was done hastily, I say that they looked too hastily. And the bare bones of my muse (whatever they may be) are the force and the energy that commands my attention.
In the past, painting was painting; now what takes place are brushstrokes of paint which are vital to the total piece that is being created and in turn they become painting. Sadly, I've spoken about this many times and it seems that just a few people see what I'm striving for. Each phase of my creative energy has given me many new ideas and fresh images that lead onto more images and present me with a way to restate that which the muse awakens.
The many avenues that I've explored over 50 years have become the building blocks which are the underlying elements of all I create. They have given me the ability to compress all that I've done into what I do now, and aid me in seeing what I paint, rather than simply painting what I see. My point of departure is Nature and other subjects close to me, for one must feel deeply in order to create meaningful Art. As each day differs from the one before, so each painting differs from its fellow paintings; and yet, there exists an individual thread that gives them their life--the thread that connects all my career's explorations, taking what was and reforming into the now. This is what I do.
Excerpted Maine Sunday Telegram review 11.15.2009 by Philip Isaacson
CHARLES DuBACK
DuBack seems forever fresh. If I were asked to summarize his paintings, watercolors and collages, I would say something likeÉthe freshness comes from within. I realize that is non-descriptive, but that's the feeling I get when I see his work. He has a meticulous sense of live placement; each mark, each unit in an appointed place. In variant after variant of a common theme, there is an absoluteness and rightness to each and none seem, to me at least, more endowed than any other. It's uncanny. You can test this at "Charles DuBack, Early and Recent" at the June Fitzpatrick at MECA in works in oil, watercolor, charcoal and pastels and, to my great delight, collages made in 1959. The collages are prescient; they suit us, not as artifacts, but as works expository of contemporary attitudes. At a time when collagists were still looking to Kurt Schwitters and the like, DuBack seems to have looked at what was to come. I find these as much of a tonic as anything I see around us. If you're looking for an uplift in these times, go to see this beautiful show.
Excerpted Artscope magazine review February 2010 by Elena Sarni
The gallery is located in an old brownstone-type building with a view of the Portland Museum of Art's historic McLellan House. Being off the beaten path, June Fitzpatrick's High Street gallery has become a destination for serious art connoisseurs and collectors of works on paper.
After a successful showing of DuBack's oil paintings this past fall at her second gallery, which coincided with the multi-media "Coming to Maine" DuBack exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art, Fitzpatrick's High Street gallery show includes examples of DuBack's abstract collages and his stylized/figurative collages. Barring a few pieces, the collages from PMA's show will be transferred to Fitzpatrick's High Street gallery and exhibited during February and March, alongside several other collages. Most of the works date back to 1959--apparently a prolific collage-making year for DuBack. The collages were typically inspired by the Maine landscape, or Maine life in general. DuBack hand-painted the majority of the paper used in the collages. I find it amazing that the arrangement of a few hand-painted strips, or blocks of paper, have the power to evoke emotions, or resemble a landscape. I expect that DuBack's approach to collage mirrors his painting philosophy, which he explained in a lecture given at the Downtown Gallery in Washington, Maine: "that which one sees isn't to be copied, but should be realized [by the artist]ÉI believe to paint is to know how to put nothing on a canvas and have it look like something, when viewed."
An example of this can be seen in "Middle Ground." It's deceivingly simple, made of only seven pieces of paper, but it clearly features the horizon line of a landscape. The imperfections and texture of the hand-painted paper add character to the piece. But I was equally impressed with DuBack's stylized and figurative collages.
His figurative work resembles that of Alex Katz, which is not surprising since DuBack, Katz and sculptor and Maine native Bernard Langlais all met at Skowhegan then returned to New York and shared studios in the same building on 28th Street. "Blueberry Pickers," in particular, reminded me of Katz's work--with human figures in a field, one wearing an eye catching red sash.
The compositions are understated, yet strikingly beautiful in their simplicity, delicate sensibility and color schemes. And, there is something strangely intimate about looking at these collages and knowing that each piece of paper was handled multiple times by the artist throughout the creative process.
High Street Gallery
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