Charles Wildbank

" ... the inner world for me is one vast camera obscura with all its images of light and ever-changing color. Then I seek outside for models to reflect that vision from within." - Charles Wildbank

Charles Bourke Wildbank is a native New York artist who attended the Pratt Institute, receiving majors in painting and photography.   Wildbank is well known for his versatility of a wide range of figurative themes including florals, still life, portraits and seascapes.  Wildbank’s style is characterized by his flare for Photorealism with hints of Surrealism.

In his first exhibit on Fifth Avenue, Wildbank created a sensation with a giant sparkling rendering of the famed Cartier diamond.  He has painted portraits of artist David Hockney and the late opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti.  His latest achievements include two 18 feet high murals commissioned by the Cunard Line for the new luxury ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2.  Wildbank and his works are listed in Deaf Artists in America: Colonial to Contemporary - a book by Deborah Sonnenstrahl.  Wildbank conducted workshops in Poppi, Italy during the fall of 2002, and Giverny, France, during the spring of 2006.

Observable form and vivid color have long been attributed to Wildbank’s art.  His recent works appear to experiment with the abstract and the surreal christened as the HADO Series.  “Love” shows his passion for archeology. In this painting he has notions of the ancient rituals of human sacrifice, where hearts were put on the altar.  The subject gives a sign with his arms crossed which in Sign Language means love. For him, love, death and life are one.  In “Knowledge”, Wildbank took the image of a 2000-year-old tree, added the sign for Tree, and called it the tree of knowledge. In “Freedom”, his help for a deaf mute man wrongly accused of a crime, inspired him to paint the hands of an elderly woman with the palms outward.  The free spaces between the fingers signify the bars of a cell.

Charles Wildbank is a professional artist showing tremendous technical command with his photorealistic paintings.