About Stu

Stuart Charles is a conceptual artist from Raleigh, N.C. with over 9 years of experience creating oil paintings. In 2013, he earned his B.F.A. from Western Carolina University, and has since been fine tuning his skills in various mediums: from Graphic Design, to Painting, Photography, Writing, Video Editing, and anything in between.

In 2012, he won Best In Class at Western Carolina’s Student Art Exhibition for a piece entitled “Cheney’s Got A Gun”, and has also appeared in other juried exhibitions.

Once dubbed “Banksy with a Canvas” by a fellow student, Stu relies on sarcasm, irony, subtle humour, play on words, surrealism, and absurdity to convey his ideas about serious social and political issues.

His interest in pop culture, entertainment, and foreign policy fuel his passion to relay these ideas and beliefs about society and the people therein, which are then translated to the canvas in a very structured manner.

Process

The process involves coming up with an idea, and using Photoshop to manipulate the character (or characters) inside of an appropriate environment. He then edits the photo, making sure the lighting and exposure are correct. After that, the digital image is printed and translated to canvas, duplicated larger than the original 8.5″ x 11″ through a grid structure. The goal is for the piece to evoke a larger than life sentiment in order to incite a discourse over said issue or topic.

Ron Laboray

One of his first “a-ha” moments came at a very frustrating time early on. It was during the Fall of 2011 that Stu took his first painting class, but he struggled quite a bit initially. Almost ready to give up, he sought the advice of teacher and painter Ron Laboray, who saw potential in his work, but urged him to be looser in his brush strokes and not dwell so much on the result.

“Oil affords you the opportunity to adjust the painting as many times as you want, so don’t worry too much about how it looks at any given point.”

It proved to be a turning point when the class had to do a self portrait, and Stu, heeding the advice of his teacher came out of nowhere with a solid painting. Afterwards, Ron called the piece “painterly” which in turn inspired the name of this website when it was launched 6 years later in 2017.

To this day he uses oil for that very reason, and keeps Ron’s words of advice firmly planted in the forefront of his mind when a painting isn’t quite going according to plan. Because Stu is a big picture sort of fella, he’s always looking towards the end result. Ron’s philosophy helps him to take a step back, decompress, and loosen up enough to where he can finish the piece and still be satisfied with it at the end of the day.

Stu is available for commissioned work, and generally charges $2 – $3 per square inch.

Services Include:

• Family Portraits
• Single Portraits/Head Shots
• Pet Portraits
• Landscapes
• Food
• Custom Illustrations

Photography:

• Weddings/Events
• Head Shots
• Family/Pet Portraiture

and more!

Contact Him for a free quote today!

Exhibitions

• Student Art Exhibition – Western Carolina University (Spring 2012)
• Metamorphosis – Juried Art Exhibition (Fall 2012)
• Student Art Exhibition – Western Carolina University (Spring 2013)
• The Gun Show – Juried Art Exhibition (Fall 2013)
• Vigilance – Juried Art Exhibition (Fall 2013)

Education

• Wake Technical Community College – A.A.S., Advertising & Graphic Design
• Western Carolina University – B.F.A., Graphic Design