Charlie White
USC Roski School of Fine Arts
If you’ve ever encountered the photography of Charlie White, you likely won’t forget it.
White’s photographs create scenarios in which complex social and psychological realities coexist. From his Understanding Joshua series, in which a homunculus-like creature serves as the embodiment of male self-loathing, to Everything is American, in which meticulously staged tableaux featuring historical and mythological figures provide unsettling glimpses into the darker side of the American psyche, White’s images juxtapose the profoundly disturbing with the eerily mundane.
White “makes” his photographs as opposed to “taking” them, employing actors, elaborate sets, puppets and other special effects as means of addressing situations, both imagined and historically derived, that affect the viewer with a psychological depth that only fiction can convey. As Wired magazine put it, “he captures an entire film in one frame.”
In addition to his career as an artist, White – whose work has been exhibited around the world – is a member of the graduate core faculty of the USC Roski School of Fine Arts. He both oversees the school’s undergraduate intermedia area and is director of the Roski Master of Fine Arts program.