Charles Bronson

Charles Bronson is a man branded Britain's most violent prisoner, however since being in jail has become a prolific artist. He has caused a large amount of controversy, with some of his works being displayed in galleries and tube stations across London, fetching up to £1000.

Bronson describes sketching and painting as his ‘greatest pleasure’, creating hundreds of artworks of which a large number depict his life ‘inside a cage’. Many of the works are cartoons that tell the story of his numerous crimes, whilst injecting a sense of humour.

I find his very upfront yet humorous approach fascinating, but particularly like how he appears to use art as a form of therapy and release. My primary research appears to support this as I have found a range of different forms of art, by a diverse range of people, in a diverse range of places. It seems anyone is capable of having a little creative outburst, and some people use this more than others as a way of releasing emotions, thoughts, and feelings, whilst also communicating a small amount of their personality. Bronson is a great example of this.  Whilst researching him and his work I found that he seems to channel a wide range of his emotions through his work. For example his restraint and forced drug depictions portray his dark side, full of anger, frustration, bleakness and negativity, whilst his delicate animal drawings of cartoon creatures portray his much more unseen softer side, perhaps full of love, kindness, and guilt? The humorous work takes away the brutality of the darker sketches/paintings, possibly to enable people on the outside world to connect with Bronson’s work, and therefore connect with him, and see the slightly more light hearted and pragmatic approach he has adopted on the subject. Or maybe the light heartedness is a trick to pull people in, and only once they are immersed in the work they realise the cold hard truth of what is being depicted and its connotations. 

Something I found interesting about Bronson’s work is that there were objections to work being put up in tube stations and galleries. However this isn’t because of the nature of the work, this is because of the artist. There may never have been any criticism if viewers were oblivious to the creator of the work, yet upon discovering it was created by an outsider artist there was a large amount of criticism. This shows there is still a divide between people considered outsider artists, and the likes of fine artists, which could also suggest there is still a divide between high and low art.

I find it fascinating how a lot of Bronson’s work questions the viewer through the bold statements and drawings used. Usually we would be unlikely to listen to a prisoner who wants our attention to consider his views and opinions. Yet his work quickly and clearly makes us think about whatever subject he is broaching, and sometimes question the message he is putting across. Whilst researching Bronson I found that he draws inspirations on a daily basis from anything around him. This approach is similar to the Paul Smith quote – “You can find inspiration in everything. And if you can’t, look again”. Bronson is a great ambassador for this quote. He is in a very closed off and confined space yet constantly finds inspiration to create great pieces of work. Finding inspiration in whatever surrounds us encourages us to be creative, and therefore create overlooked pieces of artwork wherever we are.

Leading on from this I am going to explore whether people are expressing themselves (as Bronson does but not necessarily in the same way) when they create unnoticed or overlooked pieces of art, and if so what they could be expressing/why. I will do this by collecting primary research and analysing selected pieces.