Joy and Glory... (Columbus Monument, Gaetano Russo, 1892), indigo pencil on gessoed canvas, 48x72", 2021

CHARLES ELADIO BERONIO

My work displaces the objects, symbols, signs, and language of our consumer economy and information saturated environment. I incorporate everyday subjects and objects found in public spaces, commercial/corporate settings, and institutional/bureaucratic sites. My work inverts and negates the embodied beliefs, meanings, and functions found in those places.

My practice examines and critiques the relationship between politics, commerce, and media. It dislocates and redirects familiar materials from their typical functions in order to illuminate and reveal submerged meanings and narratives. It subverts the ideological codes and forces at play in the spaces and places we inhabit and reside in.

The work I make contends with the surface detail and codes of speculative capital, accumulative wealth, and extreme luxury associated with mass culture. Through the observation of material and visual phenomena I respond to the increasingly abstract nature of the culture of capital and spectacle. Utilizing allegorical and conceptual strategies, I create objects, images, and writings as a means to engage with the historical and contemporary events and phenomena of the world we live in.