Photo cred @domestictrashbag
While the streets and venues in Melbourne are silent the voices of the artists that make up Melbourne artistic community are not. Charlie Anne Paino is a Melbourne/Naarm based visual artist (and long-time friend) who creates under the alias of CAP. Described by Charlie as ‘The thinking Hat I put on when I draw’ CAP operates from a gender-neutral perspective. While Charlies everyday life is powered by her experiences as a woman, CAPS art is communicated through a nonaligned position of creation.
On a cold Thursday night Couchdog had a chat with Charlie over zoom. Catching up and chatting over a beer (in Charlies case a hot tea) we discussed how she was finding it to operate as an artist during a once in a hundred-year pandemic as well as the ramifications to the arts community as a whole. Pre Covid, CAP was a pretty active member of the arts community within Melbourne. With their signature Mr. Squiggle style and ethos of ‘Making a mess and turning it into something’ CAP presents an intriguing artist style that really embodies the philosophy and aesthetic of the scrappy arts community. A community that does not require technical perfection but instead prioritizes participation and collective expression.
Armed with a sharpie and recycled paper CAPS creative output crosses over to the music world as well as the visual. Their designs can be seen on merch for bands such as Pseudo Mind Hive and a single cover for Psychobabel. However perhaps their most ambitious artistic endeavour was the live painting during sets at The Evelyn Hotel. Swapping a guitar for a sharpie on stage to bring a convergence between visual art and music to a live setting. Drawing during sets from favourites such as Muma Ganoush and Tram Cops, CAP’s integration between the two mediums gives us an exciting look into what we will hopefully see more at live gigs.
Diverting our attention from CAP we moved our focus over to Charlie herself. Learning about how she was navigating our locked down world on an artistic and personal level. As Charlie put it her artistic instinct is community driven. Without the in-person gatherings of like-minded individuals her inspiration hasn’t exactly been at an all-time high. However, Charlie has taken this time to refine who she is on a personal level, opposed to how she operates outside of her own bubble, home or even bedroom. It has proven to be an opportunity to focus on creativity, which according to Charlie is different to inspiration. It is more inward.
For anyone who knows or follows Charlie you would know her dedication to the community is at the forefront of her output. Last year (seems a lot longer ago at this point) she curated her own Charlies Angels exhibition. This interactive event was an effort to propel a diverse collective of artists to the foreword and included visual art, musicians, photography, life modelling and an array of other forms of expression. Hosted at our friends at 17 Acland St was a huge success and was a huge inspiration to the catalyst of Couchdog Collective. Throughout our chat with Charlie this was probably our main take away. The majority of our conversation wasn’t centred around Her or CAPS work but the entire arts community as a whole. The selfless sense of collaboration that both Charlie and CAP enCAPsulate (ha) is exactly what the scene of creatives will need as the world starts to open itself back up again. A network of support and partnership between all art forms in order to give exposure to a diverse range of artists. Mixing the Visual art and music is something we here at Couchdog are incredibly excited to explore and are super excited to have been able to pick the brain of an individual who has a similar vision and sense of camaraderie. We learnt a lot from our chat and can’t wait to see what both Charlie and CAP both have to offer in the future!
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