Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy talk to painter Steven Charles at his recent exhibition Things That Fell Out of My Pocket at Associated Gallery, Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Charles remarks: "I am avaricious about seeing. I am an absolute cannibal. It's not just painting; it's music; it's books... I'm trying in my paintings, I think, to approximate that experience of being hungry." He continues, noting "when I make my own paintings... something that ended the last painting, a gestural mark or a technique, will start the next painting. But it's never enough... I'm not an idea artist; I'm a process artist. I think there's a big difference there. I don't know what these things are going to look like when I start. I don't want to know... I start them knowing that what I'm starting them with isn't going to work. So when I get in that work I've got to surprise myself, and it's really hard to surprise yourself if you're really honest."
