ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Charles Eckart, a fifth-generation Californian, was born in Oakland and grew up in Yosemite Valley. He took B.A. degrees from the University of the Pacific and the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, and did further study at the San Francisco Art Institute.

His exhibition history goes back to the mid 1960’s.In those early years he was a realist painter, but by the 1970’s became more interested in expressionist figuration which allowed him to keep the creative impulse moving more fully through the painting process.He lived and worked in San Francisco for 24 years and in 1985 moved north to Point Reyes Station.Again, responding to his environment, his interest changed to landscape.He did not want to record nature as observed but to glean her lessons to create purer paintings that equal and reflect the complexity and beauty of the natural world,

Kenneth Baker in a 2000 San Francisco Chronicle review said, “Eckart’s Groundcover paintings -- paint-slagged surfaces that mimic the mulch of a forest floor -- are the best he has ever done. They are intelligent formats for the display of material and color.”In a more recent review in 2006 Baker continues, “Eckart locates, or brings into being, a focal plane where we can dwell on the pleasure of seeing paint regain the materiality it sacrifices to subject matter in mostfiguration.On the same plane we experience what anyone who knows painting will recognize as real expertise.”