Charlie Co (b. 1960)

Lot description

Blue Cactus signed and dated 2005 (lower left) oil on canvas 69 3/4" x 41 3/4" (177 cm x 107 cm)   PROVENANCE Osage Gallery LITERATURE Literature: Flores, Patrick D. and Jonathan Thomson. Charlie Co: Possessions. Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same title at Osage Gallery. Hong Kong: Osage Gallery, 2007. Full-color illustration and painting description on page 54. EXHIBITED Osage Gallery, Charlie Co: Possessions, Hong Kong, 6 June - 15 July 2007   Despite its comical art style, the meaning beneath the illustration of Charlie Co's Blue Cactus is anything but its whimsy. The piece revolves around an illustration of a blue cactus with a face, its body bursting from the wooden chair, while a double-faced crow or raven perched on the left side, a figure with an aggressive expression flanked on the right side, and at the top right of the canvas, a hangman's noose can be seen behind the aggressive figure. Upon closer examination of the artist's piece, the surrealist theme of oppression becomes very clear once one becomes familiar with the symbolism. The blue cactus wearing a smiling face represents a resilient and emotionally complex individual who hides their true expression underneath a facade, as it was surrounded (or could be interrogated based on the hangman's noose and the cactus being "trapped" to the chair) by a twofaced crow or raven, which is a motif that Charlie Co often uses in his artwork as a symbol of destruction and death, as well as the aggressive figure and the distance that can be associated with an oppressive force. (Mark John Castañeda)