A true son of Negros, Charlie Co has dedicated his life to art and to the community that nurtures him. He grew up in a fertile land with abundant natural resources and a rich cultural heritage. His generation saw the rise and collapse of the sugar industry during the martial law years that fed the local economy and impacted the lives of the Negrenses. These lived memories deepened a socially-conscious attitude that fuels his art practice.

The last four decades has been a journey through passages of learnings, challenges, and triumphs for Charlie. This exhibition, in tandem with one held at Orange Project, offers an overview of  the different phases and facets of his life through works from the artist’s personal collection and select borrowed works, comprising mostly of drawings and a selection of paintings and sculptures. 

The arch is a recurring icon in many of Charlie’s paintings and drawings. It is symbolic of his strength in character and stability; his journey in phases filled with triumphs and hopes. Aside from a personal milestone, these two exhibitions also mark the two decades of the art district Charlie helped establish and continue to nurture that is now known as Orange Project. His successes are not only his personal gains but are shared with his family and community — a gift of service or “halad”.

At a young age, Charlie Co has been aware of his acute sensitivity to the world around him. The act of drawing has helped him cope and make sense of his environment. Immediate and spontaneous, drawing extends Co’s ability to see and comprehend what he sees. Through the years, he has developed his own iconography that may very well exist in dreams but are very much grounded in reality. These include the crow, arcades, clowns, mannequins and mechanical horses, to name a few. His works have been described as “childlike fantasies” when they are playful and whimsical. But his compositions are also apocalyptic visions, reminding us of social, political, and environmental threats.

Charlie is candid and forthright in his art. His works reveal changing dispositions in relation to the personal and the societal — from his Catholic upbringing, his heartbreaks and loves, his travels and his health struggles to the perils of economic greed and political corruption. The city setting — whether his home that is Bacolod or Manila or other cities he has travelled to — is also a potent source of material as he transforms them into fanciful, surreal, or ominous vistas.