St Barth based Charles Moreau is a humble yet very gifted artist whose work you may certainly have seen exhibited at the Wall House Museum or at Space Gallery, as a mainstay of their pro- gram since 2019.

Born in France in 1980 Charles hails from a family with a long tradition of interest in the arts; a museum curator mother and an art dealer father perhaps shaped his destiny along with his talent. After starting to paint at 14, he first studied architecture before switching to art history at the Sorbonne, before discovering and falling in love with tribal arts which took him to NY and into art dealing before finally settling on the island in 2014.

This move to the Caribbean reawakened the artist within and thus begun Charles’ focus and his current practice of representing plants, animals and more generally his daily environment.

It is very easy to forget that St Barth for thousand of years was a very inhospitable territory, and that it is thanks to the will of generations of amateur botanists, planters, settlers, etc that it was made permanently liveable. This movement started with the first precolumbian inhabitants and continues to this day.

Oceanic, African, European and Asian plants today are so acclimated that we do not notice them and take them for granted but it is good sometimes to remember where they come from and how privileged we are.

Charles’ representation of nature cannot go unnoticed - in order to pay homage to the plants he paints, Charles always represents them in lifesize, keeping their scale intact to give a coherent appreciation of their respective attri- butes. In doing so, he follows in the footsteps of the generations of naturalists who, during the time of discovery endeavored to record the exotic species of the world’s every corner. In these paintings, each plant is named by its latin dénomination in order to make it more easy to identify, and give it its international ‘ID’ – no doubt a wink to the pioneers of early science, when latin was the international language of knowledge.

Even if he has used a wide variety of tech- niques, Charles favors painting with oil on can- vas, usually on a neutral acrylic background which enables him to focus the attention of the viewer on the subject itself. A lot like the botanical illustrations he would find in the encyclopedia he used to devour as a child.

Most recently, he has turned to painting on a monochromatic colored background and a certain Japanese aesthetic in his new series of plant paintings. His delicate rendering of the intertwined branches, blossoms and leaves, cre- ate beautiful canvases. His use of color and appreciation for the beauty of the world around us is infectious. His paintings are an ode to nature. A poetic love letter which having read it, we all fall under its spell.

Charles Moreau Mapou Rouge - Cordia Sebestena, 2024 Acrylic and oil on canvas105 x 166 cm (41.34 x 65.35 in)

Charles Moreau Poirier Pays - Tabebuia Heterophylla, 2024 Acrylic and oil on canvas97 x 185 cm (38.19 x 72.83 in)

Installation of various of Charles Moreau's Botanical pieces in Space Gallery Soho.

Contact Space Gallery for details on Charles Moreau’s work and available pieces.

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