Charles Avery

Charles Avery was born in Oban on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, in 1973 and currently lives and works in London. Following his philosophical theory, Avery has dedicated himself to a single project since 2004: The Islanders. His drawings, which may initially appear incomplete, are actually meticulously planned in every detail and enriched with elements that obsess the artist. They depict weak women and rude, wilted men who inhabit a world on the border between imaginary and physical reality: an island that is part New York, part Istanbul, and part Isle of Mull, where Avery grew up.

The sculpture Empiricist from 2009 represents the thinker constantly in search of answers provided by experience. The purple headpiece worn by the Empiricist, reminiscent of the mitre worn by bishops in the Catholic Church, is “attributed to the Arab philosopher Averroes, translator of Aristotle and the first pre-literal empiricist.” In his texts, which over the years accompany his works like travelogues, Charles Avery narrates that “the Islanders tend to gather in bars just like we do, except instead of following football matches, they engage in passionate philosophical debates. Each school of thought has a leader distinguished by their headpiece, and there are also violent factions, a sort of thought hooligans who attack anyone wearing the hat of an opposing group, somewhat like in A Clockwork Orange. This is especially problematic for tourists who buy the headpieces as souvenirs and risk getting embroiled in disputes that don’t really concern them.”