Jonathan Charles creates fine art prints based on photographic images.

His work covers a wide range of subjects from deserted landscapes to empathic portraits, treatments from photorealistic to almost pure abstract, media from vibrant colour to absolute black and white. The quest for beauty and connection to our universal subconscious mythology is his driving force using choice of compelling subject matter, the semiotic power of design and the emotive immersion in real or dream scenarios.

The viewer is invited to enter and stay awhile to relish and absorb the the many facets as they gradually emerge from each picture.

Much of Jonathan Charles' work includes nudes. The naked female form has been an important subject for art in most media and at all times in history and there are many contributing reasons for this. Firstly, the abstract concept of beauty is at least partly based on the ideal of the healthy sexually attractive body of a man's potential mate, interestingly shared by many women probably by identification and possibly because their own ideal mate is more specified by non-visual attributes. Secondly being undressed in an indoor setting suggests a degree of intimacy, revelation and open communication which is a counter to the existential isolation we are forced to accept as we grow up in society - one of the main drives for forming emotional relationships. Thirdly nudity in an outdoor scene implies a state of innocence "before the fall" in the Garden of Eden - an ideal sought by the naturist movement, of harmony between people and the natural world. Other reasons include the subjective sensations of contact with the environment through the naked skin (sunlight, wind, water, soft / hard smooth / rough surfaces), the feeling of rebirth and renewal in surroundings of derelection and decay ( seen especially in the work of post WW2 german and eastern european artists), overt eroticism - carried to a dull repetitive formulaic extreme in pornography - and many more. In any individual art image several of these factors may be working together and in much Jonathan's work the nudity especially expresses humanity at one with nature and the sensitivity of the skin to the environment, the veiwer being invited to identify with the subject and experience the scene from within via all the senses.