Darlene Charneco Hammers Out Beautiful Messages at Guild Hall

Darlene Charneco has some very big ideas about her art and the vital messages it contains.

Currently on view at Guild Hall through May 6, her exhibition Field Mappings, Weaves and Touchmaps is an absolute joy and marvel to behold, whether or not you ascribe to the deep thoughts that brought it into being.

This well curated show, which comes as the result of Charneco’s “Top Honors” recognition at the 2020 Guild Hall Artist Members Exhibition, includes a selection of pieces, all done in the artist’s signature style of hammering nails into wood panels and then painting the nails or the areas they form. With themes of the ocean, the Earth, the Moon, foliage and light, Charneco’s pieces in this show have a sumptuous color palette that’s tastefully understated with no bright, primary colors, nor any hues that don’t appear in nature.

“I’m so happy how it is as a space — the gift of being given a room like this is that you can arrange it to say something as well, and I loved that,” Charneco, an Orient resident, says. She describes her chosen pieces and their layout almost as if together they form a larger artwork, like the songs that make an album or the planet and the many species that give it life — which is very on theme for her.

“I am still trying to convey something that I feel very strongly about mutualism (the idea that mutual dependence is necessary to social well-being), about that being the greatest hope that was shown to me, in some symbiosis,” Charneco says, explaining her vision about the deeper message to her work and the importance of mutually beneficial relationships between organisms and their environments. “We have phases of symbiosis that we go through as organisms within organisms. My last big show was called Harmonious Holobiont. And the holobiont is just an awesome term that I hope becomes more used and understood — that we are comprised of so many beings, and then we together comprise something that is this planet, and that we are basically hurting ourselves or helping and healing ourselves by what we do,” she continues, adding, “It’s a metaphor and a truth.”

Charneco’s work has a great deal of thought behind it, which she believes is helping to deliver an important message to the world. But her creative process — the physical act of making each piece — is also a vital component.

“As I’m hammering, this is for me of course a very therapeutic and wonderful process that happened over years and years that I think I will hopefully continue forever, if I can. … You keep going, you start again. You start hammering about one small thing, thinking of one thought, asking for guidance, moving forward, and each one aggregates, and over time something is evolving and we’re part of it,” she says. “To me, they’re not nails, they’re extruded lines. But at the same time, it is interesting, it holds something in it. As you’re hammering, there is a sound and a vibration, and then because of the nature of what it is, it’s in there still, there’s a trace of it.”

Charneco says her pieces are the physical manifestation of her “letters to the universe,” taking shape as she creates them. “As I’m doing them, I’m sending out a message, then afterward it’s like a braille tablet that I can sort of feel and remember parts of it, but it’s not in any linear format anymore.”

Additionally, Charneco says she’s making maps, of a sort. “They’re topographical maps to me, but they are trying to see our movement and the ecosystem’s movement…almost as if you’re touching the Earth,” she says. “It’s my way of trying to understand everything that’s happening in our current motions and movements. Into large scale, then into the intricate and tiny scale,” she continues, pointing out that it’s all about losing one’s self in the scale, whether that’s macro or micro in nature.

“I’m always looking into biological scales — tiny patches of dirt in the backyard or tree bark,” she says. “And I love to research and look into symbiosis, what is happening in different scales biologically and see us as that same thing. What is happening to our species? … We’ve been going through so much globally.”

Charneco’s motivations and musings go deep, but for the more practical art fan — wiping away all talk of messages, maps and mutualism — these pieces hold up wonderfully simply for what they are: exquisite objects born of what must be a compulsive work ethic, profound commitment, a keen, innovative sense of color and composition, and decades of studio time. They change with the angle of light and exhibit captivating shadow-play as it shifts. In short, these are gorgeous, surprising works of art that people will covet, and they offer plenty of concepts to ponder.

Darlene Charneco’s Field Mappings, Weaves and Touchmaps is on view at Guild Hall in East Hampton, 158 Main Street, through May 6. Call 631-324-0806 or visit guildhall.org for more information.