Exhibition Checklist

Press Release Text:

Charlie Perez-Tlatenchi returns to haul with Heaven and Ground, a selection of new work that distills a formative period of research into compositions that transform with light and perspective. Charlie spent the last few years focused on the history of modern globalization through research trips to capture the traces left behind by previous global trade networks that connected Latin America, Asia and Europe. Charlie also developed a visual language through the use of vernacular materials such as lenticular prints, spray paint, plexiglass, and window vinyl. These materials reflect on the hidden histories still operating under the shadows of globalization that recede into the background of everyday life. The works mounted on the gallery walls for this presentation primarily focus on the unstable role of faith in the current global order.

The exhibition’s title is a play on “figure and ground,” a fundamental compositional device that distinguishes between a central figure and the surrounding background within an image’s frame. The destabilization of this concept is an essential undercurrent in Charlie’s practice. The artist further builds upon this running theme through his own relationship to religion. As someone born into the Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn, his relationship with the immaterial realm has gone through periods of development, rupture, displacement, and fragmentation. Charlie takes it upon himself to work through this and create portals into spaces of material dissonance and reflection. His use of commonplace materials bridges an inherent desire to connect the material world to another realm, through the transformative nature of the elements combined in these works.