Charles Munch lives on a hill top near Lone Rock, among the big hills of southwestern Wisconsin.  This is a remote, densely wooded, sparsely populated part of the state. 

Charles's brightly colored paintings reflect the surrounding landscape-- as well as the animals, both wild and domestic, that inhabit it.  His household includes four cats and a beagle-mix hound.  Deer and smaller animals are abundant in the surrounding woods.  Much of his work investigates the question of how humans fit into the rest of the natural world.  He wonders, "Are  we part of nature, or just outside observers?"

Born in St.Louis, trained in New York and Portland, Oregon, Charles has lived in Wisconsin for thirty years.  His distinctive semi-abstract style emerged here around 1980 in response to Wisconsin's  light and landscape.  His paintings have been exhibited in twenty solo shows in the midwest and on both coasts.  The depth of imagination has been recognized in three elaborately installed museum exhibitions devoted to his work in Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago.

Charles Munch is represented in Madison by the Grace Chosy Gallery, in Milwaukee by the Tory Folliard Gallery, and in Chicago by Perimeter Gallery. 

"In my search for the location of semi-abstract painting, I'm hoping to discover a semi-tame, semi-wild place where humans can live in harmony with wild animals and the rest of the natural world."