The Worlds of Charles Oakley

The Fine Art Society hosted  an exhibition of the work of Charles Oakley, the first to take place since his death, in 2008. Best known for his box constructions of miniature gallery environments, Oakley was an artist of enormous originality whose work possesses imagination, beauty, charm and wit as well as insight into the nature of art and the human experience itself – a tall order in any circumstance!

The imagined worlds he created within the contained spaces of his box pieces are sometimes deep ruminations on the tension between mankind’s ambition to explore and conquer and the potential for failure. Other pieces examine the meaning and methods of artists as diverse as de Chirico, Magritte, Winslow Homer and Uccello. And through the mastery of his technique, common to all is the playing with perception, making us question the act of looking and understanding itself.

Oakley is notable for the exacting techniques that he employed. Like theatre sets of the imagination, these imagined worlds create illusion and magic. The fastidious technique of his painting – minutely detailed, to render in miniature famous masterpieces by Stubbs or Winslow Homer - is often combined with the complex perspectives of imaginary galleries or architectural settings.