Charlie Emmet

Installation
On Site
Off Site
Painting
Chalk Series
Water Series
Flower Series
Photo
Building 40
Miscellaneous
Film
About
CV
Contact

About
Charlie Emmet, (b. 2005), is a visual artist from Washington DC, and currently resides in Baltimore at the Maryland Institute College of Art, working to receive a BFA in General Fine Arts. Previously, he spent time experimenting with drawing the figure at the Art Students League in New York City, and graduated from City-As-School, also located in Manhattan. Emmet’s work explores divine connection to place, specifically the abandoned Walter Reed Army Hospital located off 16th St. and Georgia Ave. in DC, where he spent much of his formative years. His recent works are derived directly from his time in Building 40 of the abandoned Walter Reed grounds and emulate the many decaying textures and palettes, as well as the associated memories.

Artist Statement
My work explores divine connection to place, specifically the abandoned Walter Reed Army Medical Center located in DC, where I spent much of my formative years. This site is the catalyst for my practice and obsession with seeking out and inhabiting spaces that infest me with inexplicable profound feelings. I return back day after day, spending time with every room and layer of the building I can access.

I first visited the grounds of the abandoned Walter Reed Army Medical Center when I was twelve years old. I was fucking terrified. So much so it took me about three weeks of fraternizing with the overgrown courtyard out front of Building 40, before mustering the courage to climb in the window. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was entering a world that would fundamentally uproot my own. It was not long before the inimitable Building 40 grabbed my ankles and wouldn't let me go. Eight years later, all the surrounding structures have been demolished.

My affection for this dilapidated building that I slip into through windows is beyond measure. In my time there, I have done many works spanning different mediums. Inspired by my dense journal pages, I began by sprawling marks across the remaining moldy chalkboards. Once I exhausted that supply, I moved to drawing directly to erratically peeling walls and rusted doors.

In an early version of off site work, I created memory landscape paintings. Although they mirrored the mark-making that I developed when working in Walter Reed, I wanted a stronger connection to the site that inspired them. Over time the marking evolved from cursive writing, while holding memories and journal entries from the building, my mark making became more intuitive and movement-based. I often write until a landscape focal point of sorts appears before me.

My current focus involves translating the literal weight and almost violent, powerful presence of Walter Reed to viewers despite their not having knowledge of me nor my practice. I hope to incorporate this weight into the works through the construction of faux walls, utilizing dropcloth layered in plaster, I construct separate tablets fixed to these walls, that are reminiscent of the chalkboards found on site. I know Building 40 will soon be demolished, and my world as I know it will effectively be reduced to rubble. It is its dying wish to be memorialized. It told me. So untill that time I will continue my efforts.