Charlie Milgrim

Charlie Milgrim | Edge | 2024

You describe your practice as “restless by nature.” How has this restlessness shaped the different phases of your artistic journey?

I respond to any materials which inform and inspire my practice. I permit myself to often shift conceptual directions, never limiting myself to particular themes which might inhibit the direction of my work or the way it’s perceived. This process maintains my passion for making art.

How did your upbringing in New York City and your move to the Bay Area influence the themes and aesthetics of your work?

My mother was an English professor and a passionate, but self absorbed teacher’s union activist. My father was a stay at home concert pianist who rarely left his Steinway bench. His devotion to his craft laid the groundwork for my own art practice, empowering me to feel I could devote all my time to my work. Each of my parents and the frenetic pace of New York City life influenced who I eventually became as an artist. Living in Oakland, California steered my interests to environmental concerns, while returning to New York several times a year helped me to find art in unlikely places such as subway floors and amorphous street markings, as in my Streetcode photo series.

Charlie Milgrim | Bunker | 2024

Bowling balls appear consistently in your work. What first drew you to them as both a material and a metaphor?

I had been fascinated by the concept of the disposal of nuclear waste after visiting the proposed Carlsbad New Mexico site. While in graduate school at U.C. Berkeley, I was invited to do an installation at the former Western Union telegraph facility in San Francisco. I spotted a black vinyl stripe on the floor and immediately thought of a bowling alley. I instantly drew a connection to the kinetic energy that is symbolized in the aggressive motion of a bowling ball coming down the lane and the explosion of pins upon impact. This level of destruction is a perfect metaphor for the futility of burying this extremely hazardous material in salt catacombs.

My piece, Carlsbad Lanes, incorporated real bowling balls which had the words EARTH, AIR, WATER and FIRE, sandblasted into them as metaphors for the elements that would make this type of disposal very unstable over time. The balls were headed towards fifty gallon steel drums, covered in rock salt, and a metronome that mimicked dripping water.

After this exhibition, I thought of myself as rescuing these perfect and beautiful spheres from landfills and found many other materials to combine them with to bring life to them through my work. I hung them, dropped them off rooftops, and used them to represent gravitational forces, body parts and other biological forms.

Charlie Milgrim | Looking Down On Steel Cradle | 2025

What inspired you to begin creating nests from repurposed materials?

The “nests” present an ironic twist to the concept of sanctuary. Since birds and wild animals struggle to find organic materials to construct their shelters in our built environments, I satirically propose through these pieces how they can repurpose our items of former utility.

How do you choose which discarded or industrial materials to use for each nest?

The materials I choose are primarily composed of random objects left out on the street to be reclaimed and reused by other humans. I try to imagine how a bird might utilize these human discards for their own sanctuaries. Some of the objects I choose are antithetical to the concept of safety, while others are just disturbing or challenging on some level.

Charlie Milgrim | Molten Dyslexia | 2025

How do you balance the conceptual side of your work with the very physical process of assembling heavy or unwieldy objects?

It all references our innate relationship to the delicate balance of our perceptions of weight and gravity. Thus, I allude to the precariousness of the concepts I wield, in my actual antigravitational sculpture.

How do viewers usually respond to the combination of playfulness (color, form, bowling balls) and seriousness (ecology, survival) in your installations?

Frankly, people generally respond to the visual cues in my work more strongly than to any underlying message I may try to convey. I am okay with my concepts being subliminally perceived.