Walking Peripherals

The same area of the brain responsible for processing sensory signals is also responsible, at least in part, for storing emotional memories. It’s no wonder then that certain scents can carry notes of comfort, colors a hue of joy, and songs a subtle note of anxiety, resurfacing long buried memories.

For painter and traveling muralist Charlie Hudson, the myriad of smells, tastes, sights, and sounds offered by life in New York City coalesce to create a cocktail of sensory associations. Rather than attempt to unscramble these bundles of sensations and correlating memories, Charlie embraces the beauty in these messy, mixed connections of human experience. With confident brushwork and melodic strokes, a collection of infectiously energetic, impressionistic cityscapes takes shape in their likeness. In the artist’s words, “The cities are oceans, the skies are windows, the fields are buildings.” Memories blur as one, pulling us through points of distraction and challenging our understanding of place and time. In Hudson's first solo exhibition with Soapbox Arts, he invites us to view the world as he does, in peripherals where memory often overtakes objective experience, offering us only as much as we can - or are willing - to see.