RICHARD HELLER GALLERY
LOS ANGELES
2525 Michigan Ave
Santa Monica, CA
CARTER FLACHBARTH
Flachbarth’s work is underpinned by prosaic themes embodied in the obscureactions of the artist’s protagonist. Originally cast as an autobiographical stand-in, this figure has come to represent broader archetypes of masculinity and their inherent flaws, and is depicted variously as agitated, melancholic, bored, and distracted. Layering his paintings with situational clues, Flachbarth prioritizes action through the amplification of scale, rendering exaggerated bodies — hands and limbs — cinematically, as if through a fisheye lens, bending and twisting the picture plane in irregular positions. Flachbarth toys with perception and representation, creating each mise-en-scène with illusionary methods of painting. Passages of the works are made in
washes of a single layer of paint, while others are grainy and textured, revealing rich surfaces that trick the eye or foreground the hand of the artist. The characters are placed in environments that oscillate between convincing representations of space and the unsettling surreal landscapes of the artist’s mind.
Carter Flachbarth (b. 1996) received a B.F.A. in painting from SCAD in 2020. Flachbarth’s first museum exhibition, entitled Morality Sucks, at the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA [LINK], ran from December 30, 2021-March 27, 2022. Artsy recently named him as a “Noteworthy Newcomer” at Untitled Art Fair in Miami. Flachbarth’s work was recently shown in Richard Heller Gallery’s group exhibition, Satellite of Love, and in its booth at EXPO Chicago, 2022. Flachbarth has exhibited nationally and internationally, and his work has been included in various publications including Forbes Italia with a forthcoming interview in the summer issue of Juxtapoz Magazine.