Tower Gallery
Sanibel, Florida
Ever since I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be an artist. I drew a lot. My sister married a very talented commercial artist who encouraged me, and when I was a freshman in high school, they gave me my first set of oil paints. Boy, was I in heaven. A few years later, I got a scholarship for some lessons at the Maryland Institute of Art and finally began to learn what painting was all about. With graduation from high school came "real life" and drawing and painting took a back seat. Finding a good job became the immediate goal, but every so often I was able to sneak in a few courses and a little private study with some local artist of note. Painting was mainly on the back burner until I was able to retire after thirty-seven and a half years of working for the government. Taking courses with local talent at the B.I.G. Arts Center on Sanibel, painting with friends, and being selected to participate at the Tower Gallery has moved me, at last, into the life I was looking for.
I really like representational painting. I feel challenged to paint realistic still lifes and objects but also enjoy the loose brushwork of more impressionstic renderings. I love the beauty of nature, plants and birds especially.
During a course I took at B.I.G. Arts Center with Cathy Taylor, we used tissue soaked in paint to develop patterns on the paper beneath. I went one step beyond and left the colored tissue in place until it dried, incorporating it into the overall design. By having fragments of tissue and unfinished edges, I try to suggest bits of cloth. I often arrange these to form abstract designs. But, I also use traditional quilt patterns in some of my work to emphasize the sourse of my inspiration. I think the combination of applied tissue and realistic images emerging from the colored fragments gives a pleasantly surreal effect to the paintings.
the artist's statement
Charles Lister...
Home of Tower Gallery, built in 1926
texture and form captured in luminous color
