Lamentations & Exultations: Charlie Brouwer at the Falcon Gallery
- Floyd Center for the Arts Staff
- Sep 29, 2025
- 2 min read
“Trees have been good to me all my life. When I suddenly became visually impaired due to RVO (retinal vein occlusion) in both eyes in Fall 2022, the dark silhouettes of trees against grey skies were something I could still see. Their dignity, strength, and grace inspired me, and I began drawing them…”— Charlie Brouwer, 2025
A New Way of Seeing
When artist Charlie Brouwer lost much of his sight in 2022, he turned toward what remained visible: the silhouettes of trees. Using compressed charcoal on paper and canvas, he discovered high-contrast marks he could see, softening them with misted water until lines blurred into shapes—echoing his altered vision of the world.
What began as studies of beauty became meditations on resilience. After encountering a logged forest, Brouwer realized that trees, too, suffer loss. In his words, “we share with them a persistent long–suffering resilience, and always the potential of rebirth.”
Lamentations and Exultations
The works gathered in Lamentations & Exultations, on view at the Falcon Gallery through October 4, embody this journey. They are not simply images of trees—they are reflections on grief and healing, on the interconnectedness of all things, and on the possibility that “our way of dividing the world into many clear separate things is an illusion.”
Alongside these drawings, Brouwer’s sculptures have shifted as well—simpler, more gestural, charred to soften details until forms dissolve into wholeness. Together, the works remind us that limitation can also be liberation, leading to deeper visions of beauty.
A Closing Invitation
This exhibition is both elegy and hymn: a lament for what is lost, and a song of gratitude for what endures.
As Tom Petty once wrote:
"And if you follow your feelings. You follow your dreams
You might find the forest there in the trees.
And it’s wake up time
Time to open up your eyes
And rise and shine."
–Tom Petty, Wake Up Time
We invite you to visit before the exhibition closes on Saturday, October 4. Walk through the gallery, wander the grounds where Brouwer’s sculptures converse with the landscape, and let this work move you in ways both unexpected and unforgettable.
Falcon Gallery, Floyd Center for the Arts
On view through Saturday, October 4, 2025
Come see it before it’s gone!
