The World According to Charlie Co: Drawings, Paintings, Sculptures and Mixed Media Works (2024)

“Art Heals. This series is to inspire other artists, when [they] have the physical challenge, go to your art.”
At a young age, Charlie Co has been aware of his acute sensitivity to the world around him. The act of drawing has helped him cope and make sense of his environment. Immediate and spontaneous, drawing extends Co’s ability to see and comprehend what he sees. Through the years, he has developed his own iconography that may very well exist in dreams but are very much grounded in reality. These include the crow, arcades, clowns, mannequins and mechanical horses, to name a few. His works have been described as “childlike fantasies” when they are playful and whimsical. But his compositions are also apocalyptic visions, reminding us of social, political and environmental threats.
Its original run in February 2020 was cut short by the pandemic. In this 2024 iteration, the artist presents a varied selection of drawings, paintings, sculptures and mixed media works, all from his personal collection. We see and experience the artist’s changing dispositions in relation to the personal and the societal - from his Catholic upbringing, his heartbreaks and loves, his travels and his health struggles to the perils of economic greed and political corruption. The city setting - whether his home, that is Bacolod, or Manila or other cities he has travelled to - is also a potent source of material as he transforms them into fanciful, surreal, or ominous vistas.
Learn more about the exhibition at ateneoartgalle...
📸 Video by Clefvan Pornela/Reeltime Photography
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