Charles Ladson: Macon’s Newest Promising Young Artist
11th Hour, April 2013
Leila Regan-Porter
The time when artists discover their incredible talent varies wildly. For many, it is an early knowledge that there is something inside them that sets them apart from other human beings, and gives them an unbearable need to create and connect to their art. But for Macon-born Charles Ladson, 38, the realization that he was born to be an artist came a lot later.
Not that there wasn’t enough encouragement at home. With a mother and maternal grandfather both with artist backgrounds, there was plenty of art fodder to feed a young painter’s mind.
“My mom was an art history major at college and so growing up she always had an interest in arts,” says Ladson. “We had lots of reading and literature on the arts and like any number of other kids you draw, we all draw when we’re little, she encouraged that.
“My grandfather, her dad, was a hobbyist painter. Through those two, there was quite a bit of encouragement. Maybe they didn’t really intend me to practice this as a profession, but the appreciation for the arts led to an encouragement, and that interest of mine.”
Although Ladson continued to paint through high school, and even sell a few of his pieces at that time, it wasn’t until he was at the College of Charleston, “to study god knows what,” that he received the concrete encouragement that led to attending art school.
“I found myself drawn to the art department there, and was encouraged by some of the professors there to apply to an art school in Savannah,” the New York-based the School of Visual Arts.
This was all a self-proclaimed “wild” time for Ladson, who ended up being transferred to New York to finish his art degree along with the rest of his class when the school closed its doors due to a lawsuit with the Savannah College of Art and Design. While he stresses that it was “a great experience,” Ladson is also quick to point out, “To tell you the truth, I was maybe glad to get out of there when I did,” happy to opt for the “style and speed” of cities like Charleston, Savannah and, of course, Macon. It’s not always an easier way for an artist, he says, but it’s worked for him.
“I like Macon. I like the pace here, I love my friends and family. I struggled to get my work out there but slowly and surely it does get out there one way or another.”
Ladson’s art has surely not suffered from its location, and indeed, the artist himself points out that he thrives on the lack of distractions. His moving, isolated scenes tend to appear as overlapped stories with missing elements, which is more due to Ladson’s technique as it is to his planned narrative.
“I never start a painting thinking of a story or any sort of narrative at all, really,” he explains. “I’m really just playing around with shapes and certain objects and interiors, and they’re constantly unfolding and changing. A painting that I’d say is finished, that I’ve ceased working on, there’s probably been a dozen other images and stories beneath it. I’ve just happened to finish at that image and there’s not necessarily a particular story or narrative in mind. Though people seem to find their own stories or narratives in them, and that’s fine by me. I just set up a scene and people can read it how they see fit.”
Ladson’s attention to the shapes and movement of his pieces are what gives them their distinct look that has made Ladson such a sought-after artist, with Atlanta’s Tew Galleries and Asheville’s Blue Spiral 1 hosting showings and selling Ladson’s work for up to $6,500.
His technique also means that the piece will evolve in many unpredictable ways before reaching their conclusion, and few would believe all the different scenes and figures that lie underneath the finished product.
“I can work for a week or two weeks developing some figure that’s doing something and then all of a sudden something else develops on the page and that figure and whatever she’s doing or he’s doing doesn’t work any more and I’ve got to paint them out and maybe a piece of them stays on the canvas for whatever reason,” he explains. “One week it could be a fairly fully developed image as an interior and then all of a sudden the interior isn’t working and I’m turning it into an exterior landscape. They just evolve and move and change and I really never know where they’re going, I just only know when they are done. And I don’t know how I know that they’re done, I just, all of a sudden I have nothing more to say on the canvas and I’m pleased with the feel of it. Or maybe I just tired of working on the damn thing.”
As for influences, Ladson cites the British school that includes Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, a group that was introduced to him by British-born School of Visual Arts professor Anthony Tallitser. While Ladson’s style on the face of things may differ wildly from the likes of Freud and Bacon, his pieces share the emotion, both raw and sad, that so frequently emitted from the great artists.
Today, however, Ladson stays away from art and artists who could sway his influence, instead preferring to look inward.
“That’s who I looked at when I was younger, in my formidable years, when I was figuring our what I like about painting,” he says. “Nowadays I don’t really look so much at ArtWorld magazines or anything like that. I just find it easier and less distracting not to because there’s so much out there.”
For this same reason, Ladson finds himself unattached to the art scene of Macon, which, while he appreciates for the support (“I’m not suggesting that Macon isn’t supportive of the arts; I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t”), doesn’t hold the appeal for himself as an artist.
“I do get out occasionally to art events and functions, not as much as I should or used to when I first came to town. But I’m kind of a homebody,” he explains. “For some people I know that it is [necessary] to be more caught up in that and draw from it inspiration from that and ideas. But for me, I don’t really find it that necessary; I find it to be a distraction. I haven’t had any shortage of ideas or motivation to work in the five years that I’ve been really working here in Macon. Maybe if that day would come I might reassess my situation, but for now, I’m good to go.”
Macon is about to receive more of Ladson and his work than ever before, as the Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences prepares to host an exhibition of seven artists emerging from the Southeast, with Ladson leading the way. Ladson even had the opportunity to help discover and suggest artists, including Jeffrey Whittle, the gallery director and an academic professional at the University of Georgia, and Jeremy Hughes, whose vivid pieces can be spied at The Rookery. Other artists showing will include Brian Hitselberger and Taehoon Kim, both from Georgia, and Bo Hughins and Kyungmin Park, both from Alabama.
Susan Welsh, Executive Director at the Museum of Arts & Sciences, has been a fan of Ladon’s for several years, since she saw his work at Wesleyan College.
“ His work, of course, has evolved quite a bit since then – but what I loved then still is very present in his work now,” she says. “Regardless of the subject, there’s an Alfred Hitchcock styled narrative in every painting that is very contemporary and uniquely ‘Charles Ladson.’”
To Welsh, Ladson’s recognition has been a long-time coming and well deserved.
“Charles is highly regarded in the Southeast for his extraordinary work – by his contemporaries, art patrons, museum curators, and gallery owners,” she says, going on to speak of the other artists featured in the exhibition. “These emerging artists are producing incredibly strong work and we’re anxious to introduce them to central Georgia.