Charles Birnbaum is a New York City based artist who graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute and the Tyler School of Art.
Charles explains his work by saying, “I sculpt to explore identity. Each piece reflects the tension between my desire for freedom and my need for control, my yearning for intimacy and my fear of engulfment. The intersection of containment and freedom is a critical challenge for me because I construct each piece freehand in porcelain without the use of a wheel or mold. The shapes grow alongside one another and then shift and slide apart. Viscous mergings separate into distinct autonomous forms, and seemingly closed spheres open into enigmatic spaces, luring viewers to peer into their hollow abysses. Seductive tentacles snake in, around, and through the forms. Densely layered patterns and textures undulate across the bone-white forms, and repeating patterns in different directions accentuate the tension between the convexities and concavities and create visual and tactile dissonance. Each piece is both assertive and yielding, aggressive and pliant. And like me, my sculptures are simultaneously familiar and foreign and, like me, they simultaneously conceal and reveal.”