Charles Wince

However, his career did not develop as he had expected. The underling dark themes of his work were much more personal than he cared to admit, even to himself, and a crippling depression began to sabotage not only the production of new artworks, but his state of mind as well. Over the next 10 years Wince produced some interesting artwork but only in periodic bursts. During that time he was labeled an "Outsider Artist" by some critics, and in 1991 was included in the Museum Of American Folk Art Encyclopedia.

It was not till 1994 that Wince "straightened out some things in my head" and embarked on a gigantic 12 ft x 6 ft painting, Mother Russia Meltdown. Its subject is the collapse of The Soviet Union "by the forces of Capitalism and internal greed". The painting itself is finely detailed to an almost masochistic degree, containing hundreds of characters and objects. The work debuted in 1996 to unanimous praise as the central piece of his one man show, Attack of the 50 ft. Non sequiturs at The Acme Art Company in Columbus, Ohio. Recently he has reworked this gonzo painting, adding extra figures and objects and "fine tuning" existing elements. This "New improved" version was exhibited in January, 2010 at the Asterisk Gallery in Cleveland.

While art critics have recognized Wince favorably since the 1980’s, the artist’s career has experienced a series of starts and stops. Long dry spells were brought on by bouts of clinical depression as well as a rather hedonistic lifestyle. Earlier paintings reflect this, the canvases dominated and driven by a cacophony of subject matter where humorous touches battled it out with bizarre, tightly wound bombastic creatures and creations.

Charles’ most recent "break" occurred while taking care of his elderly parents. With no siblings to help, and with parents living 30 miles away, he had no time to paint. With the passing of his mother, Wince's focus and inspiration completely shifted and he began to produce simplistic works in the form of mandalas. Wince’s interest in mandalas stems from the long history of this intriguing symbol in Hindu and Buddhist beliefs. The mandala symbolizes the universe's wholeness in its concentric structure.

The work, Flower Arrangements for the Apocalypse expresses the bittersweet and melancholy aspect of life itself, while conveying a sense of comfort through the familiarity of the mandala. This body of work reflects on the beauty and ugliness of life at the same time. These paintings were inspired by the sickness and subsequent death of Charles’ mother. Clearly, the subject matter is flowers, but the complex symbolism brought to the forefront is about life, beauty, sex - all of which are in a tug of war with other elements: the rather short life cycle of the flower and the reminder of funerals in the arrangement of flowers.