Charles Avery

Charles Avery’s fluid yet meticulously detailed drawings and paintings explore the porous relationship between imagination and reality, fact and fiction, abstraction and figuration. Much of his work is staged as momentary glimpses of life on what he calls simply ‘The Island’. Those works depict innumerable characters’ existence in a fabled environment, integrating impulse and invention with his own memories and lived experience.  

Largely self-taught, Avery was born in Oban, Scotland, and now lives and works in London and on the Isle of Mull. The Islanders: An Introduction, was first exhibited at Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London in 2008, before continuing to tour Scotland and Rotterdam respectively. In 2007 he represented Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale, and in 2008 a publication on his work was produced by Parasol Unit and Koenig books.

Charles Avery is represented by Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, and by Grimm, Amsterdam | New York | London.