Charlie Chrobnik

Charlie Chrobnik’s striking multimedia practice delves into themes of vulnerability, effeminacy, and care. Chrobnik continually gives voice to personal experiences, preferring visual self-expression as a system of catharsis and thematic exploration.

Charlie Chrobnik.

For more of Chrobnik’s work, please visit his Instagram or his page on the Royal College of Art website.

While Chrobnik has engaged with art since he was young, he launched full-force into his artistic practice during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. This was also in part to prepare for his now-completed Master’s in Painting at the Royal College of Art (RCA). Before commencing his studies at the RCA, Chrobnik received his degree in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. While the latter equipped him with a useful background in modern art, his studies at the RCA allowed him to explore technique and materiality more deeply; both now furnish a solid foundation for his artistic practice.

Along with these accrued technical skills, Chrobnik pursues vulnerability in his work. He describes this pursuit with a paraphrased quote from renowned artist Elizabeth Peyton: “the better the artist, the more vulnerable they’re making themselves, and to be vulnerable you have to risk a lot personally.” Chrobnik applies this belief toward his artistic inspirations, which include Peyton, Jenny Saville, Hannah Wilke, Anne Boyer, Lana Del Rey, and Ethel Cain. What attracts Chrobnik to these artists is that they all profess their vulnerability unabashedly. The sort of honesty involved in utter vulnerability turns into what Chrobnik relates as catharsis. The emotional rawness he strives for also allows the person engaging with the work to channel their feelings into it.

I powdered over lilac skin and scrubbed bright blush over granite, not convincing, moonface still stings in the sun, 2022. Acrylic and textile on canvas. 80 x 60 cm.

The impetus to explore Chrobnik’s innermost self on the canvas manifests itself in motifs linked to identity. Each one of his pieces, like the above, utilises the colour pink. This choice reflects themes of gender and particularly the concept of effeminacy, an omnipresent topic in Chrobnik’s oeuvre. According to the artist, while growing up, effeminacy felt like his natural state of being. Yet he also describes what felt like a “crushing amount of shame” associated with effeminacy.

His work therefore represents the embrace of effeminacy, a pushback against these prejudicial associations and an acceptance of self. In I powdered over lilac skin and scrubbed bright blush over granite, not convincing, moonface still stings in the sun (2022), a pink lace veil shrouds a photo-realistically painted avatar of Chrobnik himself, rendered in a pale pink hue. The work’s use of colour and its inclusion of a veil – an item traditionally coded as female – also responds to increasing legislation against LGBTQ+ self-expression, such as recent laws banning drag shows. Chrobnik instead affirms that all forms of self-expression are valid.

L: He smells like lilies in bloom as he salivates, those petals fall at my feet, 2022. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas. 80 x 60 cm.

R: Blue decade this October 23 that your septic gaze run over me, 2023. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas. 80 x 60 cm.

As for Chrobnik’s process, his figural works involve photographically documenting previous paintings rendered in a photorealistic style. He then transfers these photographs of his paintings onto a canvas, painted with a palette knife. The transferred photographs then adopt the texture of the knife strokes. Chrobnik then rubs the transfer off, seals it, paints over it again, sanding it down and repainting it over and over until the work achieves his desired outcome. The act of repetition is significant to his process, not only in the actual action of repetition but also in the repetition of faces in multiple works of art.

Most importantly, the figures he depicts are never just photographs, but always photographs of portraits Chrobnik has already painted. This allows him to explore and manipulate photorealism, a style which he modifies from an uncanny representation of humankind to a sensitive and empathetic portrayal of human emotion. For example, the rightmost figure in He smells like lilies in bloom as he salivates, those petals fall at my feet (2022) is an antagonistic figure, encompassing various forms of harm such as illness and death. Yet this figure does not overpower the piece, it merely exists within it. In this multifaceted portrayal of emotion, Chrobnik elucidates the complexity of human experience in all its forms.

Wet blanket, 2023. Small painting collages encapsulated in resin sculptures. 21 cm x 12 cm x 4 cm.

More recently, Chrobnik has begun adding sculptural elements to his work. The resin casings for the paintings in Wet blanket (2023) are moulded from his used intravenous bags, serving as “commemorations of once living artefacts - of medicine that kills cells and regenerates the body all at once, and gives life back to me,” as he notes. Using these items allows him to give new purpose to crucial medical supplies that would otherwise become relics and, in doing so, address the connotations between medical care and class.

Chrobnik relates the piece’s meaning to his own medical status, and thus reflects on the fact that universal healthcare has allowed him to receive care that would be impossible without it. His re-fashioning of personal medical items into miniature “jewel-like” works of art draws attention to the often exorbitant cost of medical care by providing a parallel with art and its financial value. Chrobnik contends that medical care ought not to be equated with luxuries such as art or jewels. He is therefore able to employ his distinctive technique and style to convey a broad range of themes, producing poignant studies on what it means to be human.

Periwinkle pumped in my veins and later permeates through, pelt falls under the duvet, 2023. Acrylic and textile on canvas. 80 x 60 cm.

Selected Exhibitions:

Group Exhibitions

2023 

Passages, D Contemporary, London

RCA Degree Show, Truman Brewery, London

2022

RAW, Soho Revue, London

Art on a Postcard’s Summer Exhibition, London

Galvanise, Part of Whitechapel Gallery First Thursdays, Spitalfields Studios, London

Royal College of Art WIP Show, London

2020

Unlocked, Candid Arts Gallery, London

Outsider, Candid Arts Gallery, London

2019

The Dark Arts, Candid Arts Gallery, London

City Life, Candid Arts Gallery, London

2018

Summer Salon, Candid Arts Gallery, London

2017

Summer Exhibition, Menier Gallery, London

Sweet ‘arts Game Face, Tanner Street Gallery, London

Sweet ‘arts T’ART - A Show in Aid of International Women’s Day, Bones and Pearl Gallery, London

2016

Art Maze, Bargehouse Oxo Tower Wharf, London

2013

CSM Group Show, Camden Arts Centre, London

Xhibit13 Show 2, Four Corners Gallery, London

Xhibit13 Show 1, Holborn, London

YOUNG Charity Art Auction, RBS, London

2010

National Students Art Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London

Gabriella Hetu

Emerging Artist Co-Editor, MADE IN BED