Charles Casseus

Charles Casseus is an illustrator from Northern New Jersey; He works and exhibits in the Greater New York City Area (NY/NJ/PA).  Although his current style of work leans towards Pop-Art aesthetic, he is most inspired by the art of George Stavrinos and Norman Rockwell. 

Charles currently creates artwork in Gouache and Ink, delivering an aesthetic with clean lines, high contrast visuals, and a focus on “neatness.”  Although at first glance Charles’s work may appear to be clean cut, effortless line work, in reality, it is a meticulous and tedious process to achieve that polished look.  Each illustration begins with a rough pencil sketch, moves to a colour composition study, then a refined illustrative study, and at last begins the final, larger piece. He utilizes  a mix of brush work, airbrushing, and detailed inking with fine liners. To highlight the precision and geometric design throughout the entire body of work, Charles employs a high contrast black-and-white look.    Some illustrations are punctuated with occasional pops of saturated color such as a powerful, passionate red or a majestic, mysterious blue. Such purposeful use of bold color is wielded with thoughtful intention and meant to emphasize the emotional experience.  It attunes the audience to view a piece with an emotional perspective instead of fixating on the visual spectacle of the subject itself.
Charles prefers to work thoughtfully and methodically, working slowly and intentionally. Rather than attempting to churn out piece after piece, or stretching himself too thin by working on multiple series at once, he zeroes in on one concept. Conceptualizing his collections in this manner, from initial inspiration to draft and then finished piece, he ensures each piece receives the same high-level attention to detail and yields a consistent, quality aesthetic. 
His recent series “Space 2019” is a passion project inspired by photography and imagery surrounding space exploration (planets, comets, galaxies, NASA, space travel, etc.)  The series’ illustrative aesthetic is a combination of pop-art and graphic design influence, and riffs off of clever wordplay on space related themes. In a departure from the precise line work of previous series, Charles has added stippling and dot work to his pieces as an exploration of working more loosely, and playing with negative space to create shapes as opposed to solely focusing on definitive, bold line work.