Press
The power and paradox of Pachter’s art is the way you sense a national character simply by standing in front of his work. In his iconoclastic visual metaphors I find myself luxuriating in their beauty and sensuality. I find new connections in their strange, jarring juxtapositions. Pachter’s creative impulse extends from finding, in the cultural heritage of his country, evidence of the fundamental stories that make us human: myths. For Pachter, life has an operatic dimension. He has devoted his considerable skills to rocking his audiences with grand gesture, profound feeling, sensual overload, and glorious, splendid expressions of being human…”
Tom Smart, Saint John Telegraph Journal
“THE ARTIST WHO CREATED CANADA’S MODERN MYTHOLOGY: Renowned for his iconic renderings of the Canadian flag, the Queen astride a moose and cultural icons from Margaret Atwood to Pierre Trudeau, painter and printmaker Charles Pachter has himself become an icon of this country’s art scene. Over his 50-year career, his boldly graphic works and uncloying patriotism have presented a cheeky yet defining vision of Canada and its culture unlike any other.”
Betty Ann Jordan
“With continuing grand gestures Pachter has staked out cultural territory of his own and celebrated it unabashedly… He is a serious minded humorist who possesses the gift to be roguish and poignant at once.”
Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov
“Pachter’s works address larger concerns that speak to a wider audience than perhaps any other artist in Canada.”
Christopher Hume, Toronto Star
“Ironical work that is both serious and self-parodying. Pachter works hard, even at the trivial. The paintings are beautiful in one way or another, like joke panels that take your breath away. These witty, occasionally dry images are more than urban jokes; they have emotional staying power. Pachter invades Pop culture with surreal wit. He sometimes paints as an insider to culture and at others like a true outcast. His work escapes a tendency towards intellectualism through the sheer power of talent and love of image.”
David MacLean, Vancouver Sun
“on se sent en présence d’un homme intelligent, cultivé et sensible qui nous fait découvrir des mondes insoupçonnés à portée de la main.
Pierre Karch, L’Express de Toronto
“Charlie’s canvases are windows into the soul of Canada”
Marc Côté, Cormorant Books
THE JOURNALS OF SUSANNA MOODIE
“This is truly the most magnificent book ever to be produced in Canada, a benchmark in the history of Canadian printing. It is immensely gratifying to find how Pachter’s graphics so extend, expand and explore the inner meaning of Atwood’s text.”
Beth Miller
Special collections Librarian
University of Western Ontario
” …What is so astonishing is that Pachter’s illustrations complement the poems yet exist at the same time as separate and powerful works of art. There is an unusual dependence and simultaneous independence, similar to the best of the medieval illuminations which use the text as a springboard for creativity.”
David Staines
Dean of Arts
University of Ottawa
“Atwood speaks in a powerful modern voice. Pachter’s uncompromisingly strong yet sensitive imagery hovers properly between his vision of what Atwood is saying and what the words say on the page.This book is a magnificent example of its kind, to be savored at once and in successive stages.”
Cynthia Nadelman
Art News, New York
“…The poetry is moving, readable, engaging, and beautifully printed with Pachter’s powerful, expressionistic and highly original images. This is a wonderful complement of poetry and visual art and Susanna Moodie’s story is not lost in this burst of virtuosity.”
Peterborough Examiner
“…Pachter’s collaboration with Atwood represents a Canadian “moment of being” similar to that signalled by Ambroise Vollard’s art book publications in Paris more than 50 years ago. When Pachter draws upon his understanding of human personality and his instinct for the historical and the narrative, he truly comes into his own. It is for this reason that The Journals of Susanna Moodie has provided such an auspicious outlet for Pachter’s gifts and will remain one of his most successful creations. “
Sarah Milroy
Canadian Forum
“…The cross-fertilization of poetry and the visual arts has been the springboard for a lot of good writing over the centuries. …Pachter’s silkscreen prints, almost Jungian in their elemental power, complement Atwood’s work perfectly, not simply illustrating images from the poems, but finding visual correlatives for their desolate majesty… “The Journals of Susanna Moodie” is a haunting piece of work, enhanced terrifically by Pachter’s visual riffing off Atwood’s words. It is a synergistic masterpiece. “
Da Brewst, Amazon. com 1997
