Charles Gaines is a Los Angeles based artist whose work is rooted in conceptual art, employing the use of formulas and systems, most often in the form of a grid. He visited Paulson Fontaine Press in 2024 to work on his collection of six new works, titled Numbers and Trees: Charleston Series 2. Gaines created a new series of etchings using photos of pecan trees taken on a visit to Boone Hall Plantation in Charleston County, South Carolina–not far from where the artist was born and lived until he was five years old. The initial pecan trees series first appeared in the exhibition, “Southern Trees” in 2023 at Hauser & Wirth NY. The title of the show alluded to the 150 year old pecan trees and symbolically to the opening lyrics of “Strange Fruit,” Billie Holiday’s haunting protest anthem from the 1930s.
