Collection's top		Works by Charles Keeling Lassiter

Mirroring the Invisible   par Armande Reymond

The lasting capture and concretization of an image into a work of art can only be accomplished on some means of support. A work's support, as its format, establishes certain visual reference points in an infinity to be first mentally, and then materially, "set in order". An artist, by transferring his spiritual vision onto a support - oft transforming the latter into a perceptible background, in fact into the pictorial material of an artistic creation - creates a work's living space. As the synthesis of the artists thoughts, the infinity thus materialized by the artist reveals his own inner world. Lines, shapes, colors and materials are quick to seize upon this sacred surface, magically uniting the support's inorganic reality with a living dimension provided by the artist. The supports belonging to the work of Charles Keeling Lassiter serve to mirror and filter the invisible. The space a creation takes up is defined by the work's format ' by its surface and by the support's own initial texture. In Lassiter's work that space, the support, is carefully elaborated to register the signs of the times gradually decoded by their creator. Indeed, for this artist the creative process leads to the very heart of infinity. His path is dictated by his spiritual outlook, by his perception of the invisible, and by his need to come up with plastic solutions. The material, hence measurable, indications he unearths along the way are registered onto his work's support as the artist's way of confirming he is indeed on the right track. This is an artist constantly on the lookout for new discoveries to enhance his pictorial vision, to sharpen the intuition he needs to grasp onto a thread of truth, of personal values. For it is through such values that Lassiter comes up with his poetic images capturing both mankind itself and the mysterious realm of thought. For several years now, Lassiter has been paying particular attention to the supports of his works, kneading their material aspects to the point of lending an existential dimension to the invisible. At that point, others signs are grafted onto the support, often dominated by a human figure depicted on the very brink of abstraction, and representing the artist's search for some other reality, such as emerges from his unconscious. Such a spiritual projection, first rendered material in the animation of the work's ground, and then in the work as a whole, is fraught with possibilities. His grounds can be chromatically enhanced, or they can be more or less crowded with pictorial effects reminiscent of ceramic glazes. They can be layered in acrylic, in varying thicknesses of oil or industrial paints, or smoothly covered in a thin, translucent film of color. Whatever mediums used on them, his grounds invariably disclose a universe that vibrates to the rhythm of subtly nuanced light. The artist's search, accompanied by his pictorial preoccupations, can be said to take shape the moment he invests a support with shape, light or matter: the moment his efforts provide the support with its first creative artifact. Nor does the artist hesitate to squeeze out the essential nature of his grounds, engaging them at times in fierce battle with the support's initial texture in order to "reduce" them to a more delicate texture, to the merest colored vibration or to a simple sketch line. Lassiter avails himself of more or less coarse or fine paper, such as Japan or China paper, rice or tracing paper, to which he applies pen, pencil, housepaint roller, spatula or sponge. The risk of tearing the support is constant, but this in itself is what appeals to the artist. The challenge has progressively given him ever greater mastery over his delicate supports, which he renders deeply meaningful. In so doing, he has upon occasion so enhanced a support's pictorial and plastic content that its role is transformed from that of merely providing a ground to actively participating in the rest of the composition. At other times, quite to the contrary, when Lassiter wants to underscore the drawing itself, he uses his pen or brush to issue forth a "mere" line that, in emphasizing the support's structure down to the least detail, ends up in unison with its very texture. Impregnated at once with materialism and spiritualism, this artist's work represents an eternal and painstaking attempt to equilibrate support, ground and composition as a whole in each of his creations. For, whether deeply united or complementary, these three elements reflect the invisible, the infinite. Armande Reymond

WORKS

Mirroring the Invisible   by Armande Reymond

On Self-Reliance   (a first interview with the artist) by Sylvio Acatos

Reinventing Eden?   by René Berger

On Common Roots   (a second interview with the artist) by Sylvio Acatos

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