When you first look at the early work of artist David Charles, it can be a bit off-putting. Like many artists, Charles drew and painted what was around him.
That often meant blistering, emotional, colorful portraits of life and death in the Park Heights community where he grew up.
Some of his first pieces told tales of violence, gunplay and lives lost too soon. He saw much of this as a child growing up near Hayward and Cordelia avenues.
"I can't say I didn't have nobody to push me in the right direction because my father's always been there. My mother dealt with drug abuse for years. My brother was in 'the game,'" says Charles, who was once involved in drugs.
For most of his teenage years, Charles says, he was involved in the drug culture of the 1990s.
That dark snapshot of Charles' young life is a sharp contrast to the polite, easygoing, philosophical personality of the man he is today. He says life has changed him and so has his artwork.
"As I started getting older and stepped away from things, in regards to the streets, it was like, let me go ahead and try to better myself," says Charles, 28. "I started to venture outside of where I grew up. I started to realize there was more out there."
Vibrant, cartoonlike drawings that were little more than a hobby during his teens slowly evolved into artistic social commentary.
Included in his collection is a powerful drawing that compares an image of the American slave trade with men in a modern American prison.
Another painting detailing a young black teenager on a bus stop bench forces you to study and consider. At first glance, the teen's face is awash in despair.
The background is a landscape of litter, liquor stores and woe. The boy is dressed in the familiar "street uniform" of many urban teenagers: three-quarter-length shorts, a white tank-top T-shirt and Timberland boots.
However, when you look again, you realize the subject isn't a man at all; he is an angel, perhaps a guardian angel, pondering the weight of his work.
Has he given up or is he challenged by the daunting task before him? Charles won't say.
"I just think my art is true to life. It's not sugarcoated," he says. "It's raw. It's what I felt. It's what I experienced."
His art has become a way to supplement his full-time position as a teaching assistant for a boys' group home in Baltimore County.
Charles' work found a wider audience when he started exhibiting it at the 5 Seasons club on Guilford Avenue in 2005. In 2006, he exhibited at the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center on Howard Street.
His work shows how he has evolved; he now has portraits of jazz musicians and art that revolves around hip-hop.
"When you get older, the art is more cultural," says Charles, who has no formal training as an artist. "I've traveled some and I've educated myself on art."
His more current works include a portrait of a jazz trio. Warm shades of the smoke-filled room and cool tones of bebop jazz seem to leap from the portraits of a pianist, string bass player and saxophonist. That jazz creation is one of a three-piece series.
"Certain things I create now, I would have never created years ago," he says. "Like the jazz piece. I didn't really care about jazz, but as I've gotten older and my temperament has kind of cooled off, I went out to see different things."
Charles' father, mother and many friends still live in the Park Heights area. But Charles, like his art, has moved on. He lives in a very modest, neat, northeast Baltimore County apartment, which is a work in progress.
David Charles plans to display his work at the Black Heritage Art Show, Feb. 15-17, at the Baltimore Convention Center. To see his work online, go to theillestillustrator.com.
unisun@baltsun.com