DIGITAL ART
Where Photography, Painting, and Imagination Converge
Digital art gives me the freedom to move beyond what existed in front of the camera and explore what might have existed in memory, imagination or dreams.
Tidal Memory — From a series of photographic abstractions originating on Tybee Island.
From Observation to Abstraction
Color Becomes Atmosphere
At architectural scale, the image is no longer experienced only as a composition. Color moves outward into the room. Organic forms begin to resemble landscape, memory or movement, yet never settle into a single interpretation.
Viewed from a distance, the work changes the emotional temperature of the space. Up close, surface, detail and fragments of the original photograph begin to reveal themselves.
At first, the image may feel seductive: illuminated color, repeating forms, fragments of fashion and the unmistakable energy of Manhattan at night. Look longer and something less comfortable begins to emerge. Familiar forms become distorted. Architecture feels alive. Beauty and danger begin to occupy the same space.
These works are meant to reveal themselves slowly. What appears decorative from across the room may become mysterious, unsettling or deeply psychological at closer range.
Beauty After Dark
Citnake
Camera-based photographic abstraction created from original imagery captured in West Chelsea and Manhattan at night.
The King — Camera-based photographic abstraction created from textures discovered along the streets of Florence, Italy.
What Others Pass By
I am drawn to the accidental textures of a place: peeling paint on an old door, fragments of graffiti, weathered surfaces and marks left behind by time. They seem to find me as I walk, although I may not understand why I photographed them or what they might eventually become.
Back in the studio, I return to the fragments that continue to hold my attention. I may spend hours layering, mirroring and reshaping them until something begins to emerge. The original images may have carried little meaning on their own, but through abstraction they begin to reveal figures, expressions and visual worlds that were somehow waiting within them.
The World Within
Through photography, I am naturally drawn toward what is beautiful in the world. I look for elegance, light, connection and those fleeting moments when everything seems to fall into place.
Abstraction takes me somewhere else.
When I begin transforming my photographs, my attention turns inward. Familiar places become mysterious. Architecture, faces and fragments of texture drift away from their original meaning as imagination takes over. The work often moves into darker territory, not because I see the world darkly, but because abstraction gives me permission to explore what lies beneath its visible surface.
I rarely begin with a fixed destination. I follow the image through hours of experimentation, allowing forms to appear, disappear and return in unexpected ways. Somewhere between memory and invention, the photograph becomes a world I could not have discovered through the camera alone.
Cradle of the Renaissance
Camera-based photographic abstraction created from architectural imagery and textures photographed in Florence, Italy.
Original photographs captured on Tybee Island evolve into large-scale works of photographic abstraction.
I begin by observing what others might pass without notice: movement in the sand, weathered surfaces, reflections, architectural fragments and traces of light. Through the camera, I collect these moments without always knowing what they may eventually become.
Later, I return to the images that continue to hold my attention. As realism gives way to intuition, the photograph becomes raw material for something more personal that is shaped by memory, introspection and imagination.
The camera records what was there. Abstraction reveals where my mind is willing to take it.
Every Work Begins
with a Photograph
Created for the Space It Will Inhabit
Each work is produced to order at architectural scale, with surface, dimensions and framing considered in relationship to its intended environment. Collectors, interior designers and commercial clients are invited to inquire about available works, custom sizing and presentation.
Large-scale installation of Gilded Mirage by Charles Maring, a gold photographic abstraction displayed behind a desk in a contemporary interior.
Large-scale installation of The Aviator by Charles Maring, a circular abstraction of the Manhattan skyline displayed in a contemporary interior.
A photograph of Manhattan’s Flatiron Building is mirrored and turned horizontally, transforming the historic architecture into a symmetrical passage of repeating windows, structural rhythm and urban color.
Forms photographed along the shoreline of Tybee Island evolve into a luminous abstraction, where an angelic figure appears to rise from a gathering of color, movement and light.
Bicycles and graffiti photographed along the streets of Siena, Italy, merge into a richly textured photographic abstraction shaped by symmetry, urban fragments and the patina of time.
The Manhattan skyline and Empire State Building are transformed through expressive linework, saturated color and deep contrast, revealing the restless energy of New York after dark.