Charis J Carmichael Braun

DämmeruNG

This series looks at a male's tenacious relationship with his (metaphoric) environment, exploring concepts like ambition and decay, dominion and desire. I position an “un-ideal” male nude in nature - introverted and integrated into his wild, unstable surroundings - tenaciously holding a relationship with an antagonistic environment. Using a singular male figure, I make use of the resources closest to me - my husband, a woodworker - and our backyard.  Vulnerable and stripped of tools, protections, his gaze not meeting the viewer; the landscape is wild and shattered, out of focus. In this way, my paintings draw attention to what I feel is a problematic set up when one may expect to see or fulfill a predetermined ambition, especially when the consequences of aspiration destroy more than they edify.

I see contemporary culture attempting to stage a play of masculinity [1], [2], [3] using hyper-gendered "costuming." “Ideal” masculinity is often pictured - through art history and modern product advertising - as the adventurer or conqueror pursuing mankind's mission is to "subdue the earth." [4], [5], [6], [7]. Work that has informed this series has obliquely come from touch points including Greco-Roman (Dying Gaul, Laocoeon), Neoclassical (Géricault’s “Raft of the Medusa”), Caillebotte’s bathers, Expressionist (Schiele “Portrait of Paris von Guetersloh”, Lovis Corinth’s “Self-portrait with Skeleton”), and Charles Burchfield’s landscapes.

[1] #Lumbersexual, or, http://time.com/3603216/confessions-of-a-lumbersexual/

[2] Brawny: https://www.brawny.com/

[3] Art of Manliness: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/08/21/2-ways-to-be-more-confident/

[4] Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it."

[5] “The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus” 1959, Salvador Dali; “The Ambassadors” 1533 by Hans Holbein the Younger

[6] “Guts. Glory. Ram.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmPj8S1R55w.
Ford 2018: http://www.ford.com/campaignlibs/content/brand_ford/en_us/wired/trucks/f150/2018.html#video-0

[7] Mountaintop Mining: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b04532