Darlene Charneco
Darlene Charneco’s layered mixed media wall-sculptures explore ways of seeing our human settlements, communication networks and communities through a biological lens and as part of a larger organism’s growth stage. Inspired by a fascination in our ability to detect ever more subtle particles and wavelengths of light, sound, and scent in the environment around us, her Perceptions series combines rows of multicolored nailheads with varying arrays of nuanced color, recreating moods and experiences as ‘visual perfumes’ from memory.
In her Weaves and Touchmaps series, fields of nails undulate as textile, topography, or cityscapes, reminding us of our individual and collective roles within the larger shifts and co-evolutions of the planet. Both of these more abstract series emerged out of the artist’s earlier language-based ‘Letters to the Universe’ series and are similarly process-oriented…with each nail representing and hammered in as a condensed sentence in a meditative ‘writing ritual’ of prayer. The practice is one of renewing determination and belief in the accumulating power of all of our smallest, most sincere actions as they help contribute to and shape things to come.
Darlene Charneco is a mixed-media latinx artist, b.1971, living and working on Long Island, New York. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US at venues including the Katonah Museum, the Hunterdon Museum, The Islip Art Museum and was recently acquired for the permanent collections of the Parrish Art Museum and Guild Hall Museum.
Recent Work