“I started off this review by saying that Joan Brown and Charles Garabedian are the presiding spirits of the show Painting Forward at Thomas Erben. They could also be described as the presiding spirits of today’s art scene. By that I mean they did something more than go their own way; each developed a pictorial language that was unmistakably her or his own, and, more importantly, was simultaneously accessible and mysterious — a complete world that never gave itself entirely away.

In Stigmata (2014), a large acrylic on paper, Garabedian depicts a barefoot figure seen from the back, looking up at the sky while pulling his or her hair (the gender is never clear). The figure’s clothes sport images, including a one-masted boat sailing toward the sun. Save for a loin cloth, a nearly naked man nailed to a cross is flying overhead, recalling these lines from Guillaume Apollinaire’s great poem, Zone:  Behold the Christ who flies higher than aviators / He holds the world’s record for altitude

This connection does not clarify Garabedian’s painting, which most likely will always remain baffling, unyielding to discursive meaning. It illustrates nothing but itself.” - John Yau, Hyperallergic

Read the complete article here. Charles Garabedian’s painting “Stigmata” is on view in the group exhibition Painting Forward at Thomas Erben Gallery through April 2, 2016. 

IMAGE: Charles Garabedian, Stigmata, 2014, acrylic on paper, 72 x 45 ¾ inches