CHARLES FINE, (b. 1951)

Fossil, 1989

Fossil, 1989

signed 'Charles Fine' (on the underside)
bronze with brown patina and wax

2 3/8 x 15 1/4 x 7 in.
6 x 38.7 x 17.7 cm.

Provenance
The artist
Ace Gallery, Los Angeles
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

"I've tried to focus on basic, essential, aspects of the life cycle, and then put these into a visual context. Living structures, recycling, memory and loss are all underpinnings for my pieces."

- Charles Fine

Charles Fine's fascination with the natural world is a through-line in his varied artistic practice. His paintings, sculptures and collections bring together the human dominated present and the long, rich natural history of the Earth with subtlety and the meditative contemplation of our collective memory. A beautiful example is Fossil, a luminous bronze sculpture of a human interpretation of the evidence of the creatures that came long before us.

Fine is a Los Angeles native and his inspiration comes from far flung destinations on the globe and in time, but also his immediate surroundings. Alga, a bronze and stone sculpture, is part of a series based on kelp pneumatocysts (air bladders), which are commonly found washed up on California's beaches. In the present sculpture, Fine enlarges them showing their indentations and using a luminous green patina in his elegant vertical composition.

Increasing in scale is Herramientas de la Vida, a large-scale bronze showcasing the "tools of life". Each bronze element could be a reference to the early Paleolithic tools used by humans to set us apart and set us on the path that lead to the frenetic and digital world in which we live today. These tools stand taller than a human viewer, highlighting their deep significance in our lives and history.

Early in his artistic practice, Fine began working in painting and sculpture simultaneously. Eleventh Story is an work from the mid-1980s showing Fine's signature layered, dreamy style at its most mesmerizing. Paintings from this period are often abstract, with subtle references to organic forms. In the present painting, the forms move and swirl behind layers of luscious ivory, gold, tan, gray and green, beckoning and mesmerizing the viewer.

"Fine's work opens our eyes to the natural world we inhabit, directing our foveal vision to detailed visual nuances - an exercise in visual intelligence. (Lita Barrie, "Charles Fine: The Art of Visual Perception", ARTWEEK.LA, Vol 129, July 8, 2013)

Charles Fine was born in Los Angeles where he continues to live and work after studying at the Otis Art Institute and at UCLA. Locally, Fine's work is in the permanent collections of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Orange County Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University. His has exhibited widely since the mid-1980s and his work has been included in such notable exhibitions as Celebrating Modern Art: The Anderson Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2000 and Charles Fine: Paintings at the Newport Harbor Art Museum, curated by Paul Schimmel, 1987.