A qEEG (Quantitative Electroencephalogram) is a diagnostic tool that measures the brain’s electrical activity in the form wave patterns. Smack in the middle of easily one of the most tumultuous years in history, the very recent paintings of Charlotte Fox (b. 1994) are akin to a brain map of an individual inhabiting a very chaotic world. The way we flit from thought to thought, image to image online and IRL throughout the course of a given day (and night), could be said to resemble the workings of an atom smasher.

Fox simultaneously documents repulsion and seduction manifested around ideas of sexuality and fantasy in children; and, how, in adulthood, the same feelings are navigated and understood by means of both concealment and exposure. The subjects of these works often take the forms of animals, human body parts and/or cartoonish drawings—bits and pieces of recognizable things, but never quite whole.

Shards and fragments present themselves as glimpses, crisply and clearly, but also floating and detached from any anchored setting or substantial landscape. In these disjointed pockets of reflections, like moments of lost memories that never fully gel, the voids are filled by partial recollections.

Fox’s process employs referencing her own videos and photos, vintage porn, old movies and morning cartoons that are digitally manipulated into layers to create a single reference before being painted, in another step of removal, further from the original context. The result is an image soup, a visual rollercoaster, like a non-linear short story unfurling at a lightning pace faster than the mind’s eye can decipher at a casual glance. Yet, it is only with prolonged viewing can these works be fully digested and appreciated for the technical virtuosity and wonderment they encompass.

Kenny Schachter

Charlotte Fox was born in 1994 in Brooklyn, New York and graduated with a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016. Working predominantly with oil paint, Charlotte’s work playfully navigates experiences of repulsion and attraction and how these can occur simultaneously. Her paintings often explore themes of childhood sexuality and fantasy, and ideas of concealment and ‘reveal’ in navigating adult sexuality. Her process uses several visual references such as personal photography, old films and cartoons, which are later digitally manipulated together before being painted in oil. She has shown in group shows in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles and is currently living and working in New York.