BIO.
Benjamin Charles was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2004. He is completing dual BA degrees in Fine Arts and Political Science at The George Washington University and will enter The George Washington University Law School in the fall of 2026.
Charles’s work has been presented in exhibitions including Emerging Perspectives, The Delaplaine Arts Center, Frederick, Maryland (2025); Vivid Moments, New York Academy of Art, New York (2024); Faces and Figure, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, New York (2024); figure, Touchstone Gallery, Washington, D.C. (2024); next NEXT_, The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, Washington, D.C. (2023); Wiener Werkstätte: Nature to Abstraction, The George Washington University Textile Museum, Washington, D.C. (2023); Is It Me?, The Trolley Barn Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York (2023); and Being Seen, The Artists Gallery (TAG), Frederick, Maryland (2023).
Charles is the co-founder of Conflicted Art, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and exhibiting artwork addressing war and contemporary conflict. He has organized and co-curated the traveling exhibition We Know Who They Are… (WKWTA), presented at Gallery 102, Washington, D.C. (2024); The Evelyn Burrow Museum, Cullman, Alabama (2025); and forthcoming at The Peale, Baltimore, Maryland (2026).
He has participated in residencies at the New York Academy of Art (2024) and the Rural Residency for Contemporary Arts, Brescia, Italy (2023), and has received competitive academic and artistic fellowships and awards in support of his research and practice.
Charles’s work and projects have been featured in publications by Voice of America, the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and in Artsted’s 99 Future Blue-Chip Artists (2023).
THE PAINTINGS.
Benjamin Charles Cunningham is a Washington, DC-based artist whose work examines how contemporary societies visualize war, catastrophe, and the infrastructures that sustain them. Through paintings executed in industrial house paints and commercial color systems, he transforms militarized architectures, defense technologies, commercial accidents, and historical and contemporary crises into objects of heightened attention. The multi-panel altarpiece serves as a recurring formal reference, not as a religious symbol in a conventional sense, but as a structure historically used to organize reverence, focus, and submission before an image.
Cunningham’s work proposes that modern societies often place a secular faith in systems of power, security, and technological control, even when those same systems produce violence, instability, and destruction. By framing militarized and engineered subjects within fragmented, rearrangeable compositions that recall the altar, he traces how belief can become attached to weapons, infrastructures, and state or industrial mechanisms that promise protection while also carrying catastrophic potential. His work focuses on the uneasy relationship between reverence, risk, and the visual authority of the built systems that shape contemporary life.
CURRICULUM VITAE.
[Education]
2029 The George Washington University Law School — Doctor of Law (JD)
2026 The George Washington University — Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts
2026 The George Washington University — Bachelor of Arts in Political Science
[Exhibitions]
2026 The Corcoran School of Arts & Design “Next Thesis Festival” Washington, D.C. USA
2025 The Delaplaine Arts Center “Emerging Perspectives” Frederick, MD. USA
2024 New York Academy of Art “Vivid Moments” New York, NY. USA
2024 Site:Brooklyn Gallery “Faces and Figure Virtual Exhibition” New York, NY. USA
2024 Touchstone Gallery “figure” Washington, D.C. USA
2023 The Corcoran School of Art and Design “From Gold to Golden” Washington, D.C. USA
2023 The Corcoran School of Art and Design “next NEXT_” Washington, D.C. USA
2023 The George Washington University Textile Museum “Wiener Werkstätte: Nature to Abstraction” Washington, D.C. USA
2023 The Trolley Barn Gallery “Is It Me?” Poughkeepsie, NY. USA
2023 The Artists Gallery (TAG) “Being Seen” Frederick, MD. USA
2022 HMVC Gallery “2022 Virtual Exhibition Show” New York City, NY. USA
2022 Montgomery County Community College Fine Arts Gallery “Touch the Future” Blue Bell, PA. USA
2022 Montgomery County Community College Pottstown Gallery “Tri-County Art Exhibition” Pottstown, PA. USA
[Curatorial Work]
2026 The Peale Museum, “We Know Who They Are… (WKWTA)” Baltimore, MD. USA
2026 The Gateway Regional Arts Center, “We Know Who They Are… (WKWTA)” Mount Sterling, KY. USA
2025 The Evelyn Burrow Museum, “We Know Who They Are… (WKWTA)” Cullman, AL. USA
2024 Gallery 102 at The George Washington University “We Know Who They Are… (WKWTA)” Washington, DC. USA
2024 The George Mason University “We Know Who They Are… (WKWTA)” Arlington, VA. USA
[Residencies and Awards]
2024 Public Service Grant Commission, The Nashman Center of Civic Engagement and Public Service, Washington, DC.
2024 Luther Rice Undergraduate Fellowship, The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, Washington, DC.
2024 Summer Undergraduate Residency Program, New York Academy of Art, New York City, NY.
2023 International Artist Residency, Rural Residency for Contemporary Arts, Brescia, Italy
2022 Finalist in the 7th Edition of the Boynes International Emerging Artist Award
[Publications]
2024 Focus Ukraine Blog—Kennan Institute—Woodrow Wilson Center, “Art Defending the Right of Ukrainians…,” Blaire A. Ruble
2024 Voice of America, “An American student organized an exhibition…,” Iryna Shynkarenko
2024 Conflicted Art, “We Know Who They Are: Narratives and Artwork from the Invasion of Ukraine”
2023 Artsted, “99 Future Blue-Chip Artists, 2o23 Edition,” Artsted Future Blue-Chip Artist Award
2022 Chantal Boynes, “Artist Interview,” Boynes International Emerging Artist Award
2021 Le Jardin, “A Walk Through the Gilded Gardens”