Clarissa Charles

http://arrowpiercedheart.com/Index.shtml

I'm Clarissa, a painter. If I could, I would draw and paint all the time. I marker up CDs, paint flaming hearts on buildings, draw cats in chalk on the sidewalk, sketch portraits on the back of government forms, sculpt insanely-detailed clay busts while on the phone, and sometimes I paint on canvases.

I trained at the University of North Texas, which surprisingly (for being in Texas) has a good art school; I moved/fled to California in 2000, where artists are known to paint things other than horses at pasture and cherubs saluting flags.

My painting style is illustrative. The images have a storybook quality and are populated with mischievous and curious characters. The paintings are theatrical and rich, textural, using highly pigmented colors and deep blacks.

Influences include broken hearts, Japanese animation, jilted lovers, rusty cars, hearts and arrows, keys and locks, crowds, wiry dogs, crows, calamity, foxes, serendipity and coffee.

Theodore Grover