Roxbury's Eclectic Master By: Jack Coraggio 07/09/2009 Email to a friendPost a CommentPrinter-friendly

	Chuck Urban at home in Roxbury next to a mural he painted depicting early Roxbury. Photograph by Laurie Gaboardi.

The breadth of Chuck Urban's artistry is considerable, if not remarkable, given the array of styles he employs. It's not simply the expansive list-from realism to romanticism to surrealism, to name a few-that makes this artist's work so exceptional. Instead, the fact that he has seemingly mastered them all is what impresses most.

Indeed, Mr. Urban, proprietor of Looking for an Artist? is some kind of artistic savant, unfettered in his techniques and seasoned in his approach. He can deftly adapt his paintbrush to suit a host of varied methods, and the results are scattered throughout the rooms and hallways of his 18th-century Colonial home in Roxbury.
On an easel in his living room, for example, an oil painting entitled "Walled City Rothenburg Germany" serves as a conduit to the German city it was named after. With a realist sensibility, Mr. Urban depicts a city street as he and his wife, Elaine, once saw it. On both sides of a brick road, one finds a true-to-life representation of Bavarian-style buildings whose vaulted rooftops glow under the fading sunlight, while in the background an old-world tower looms watchfully.
Next to "Rothenburg," Mr. Urban props his recreation of the iconic "Mona Lisa." Though a bit larger than the one found in the Louvre museum in Paris, this Renaissance-era portrait is so stunning in its resemblence that it could pass for an original da Vinci.
And then, adjacent to both of those works is "Twentieth Century," a surrealistic, and somewhat ominous, look at what was the previous century. In a stormy sky, clockwork gears grind next to a suspended spherical object humanized with a face as emotionless as a porcelain doll. Below, a river cuts through a desert, while, in a ghostly image, the Beatles peer down at the arid landscape, one that Mr. Urban figures was destroyed by a wasteful, decadent culture. The river turns fiery, flows off the canvas and burns the frame (for a 3-D effect, the wooden frame is mysteriously blackened with glowing ambers.) But a blossoming orchid denotes the planet's rebirth.
"It's all going back to something beautiful," said Mr. Urban in reference to what he considers his favorite piece.
For him to pick just one favorite must be a challenge, as his artwork is both plentiful and profound. Like the three aforementioned pieces, which each represent a different era and ideology, his paintings are all so disparate, yet all so good. He doesn't quite know how to explain his fascination with these incongruent approaches, other than to note, "I like putting myself and my feelings on canvas."
There's also the fact that he never went to art school, where students are taught a focus. In the field of art, he is entirely self-educated, and the eclectic evidence reflects that. He has a true appreciation for the world of art, as vast as it is, and is willing to experiment.
Consider these two artists, Salvador Dali and Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, both of whom Mr. Urban cites as his biggest influences. The former was a 20th-century Spanish artist known for his bizarrely striking works of surrealism, while the latter was a 17th-century Dutch artist famous for his deeply crafted portraiture, landscape and narrative works. From their backgrounds to their methods, these two artistic legends couldn't be more different. Mr. Urban fittingly places them equally at the top of his list.
Although he seems to accept and appreciate the all-encompassing world of art and its creators, there is at least one renowned painter that Mr. Urban dismisses as overrated.
"The only reason [Vincent] van Gogh became famous is because he was nuts," said Mr. Urban, who once visited a van Gogh exhibit at the Louvre. "He just wanted to be as good as the people he knew."
About this point, he and Mrs. Urban, a self-employed interior designer, disagree, as she believes the 19th-century Dutch Expressionist uniquely illustrated his thoughts in a manner unseen before. Aside from that there doesn't seem to be much else they differ on.
For one, and this could be most important, they share deep Christian convictions. Additionally, she is probably his biggest fan, and because Mr. Urban is a man of quiet dignity, she is also his de facto spokesperson. Indeed, she readily expounds on his talents.
"Chuck's range is so diverse; he's a rarity in that sense," said Mrs. Urban, who went on to note the scale of his artistic repertoire. "You can even call him to restore a frame or a painting, or can ask him to do a recreation."
As evident in his version of the "Mona Lisa," Mr. Urban paints far more than just originals. And restoration-revitalizing and restoring antiques back to their original beauty-is a substantial part of his business. Incidentally, in the field of restoration, he is self-taught.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Urban has the innate ability to work in a field of mediums that extends far further than oil on canvas. He can reverse paint on glass. He can sculpt and carve in wood, clay or wax. He can build and craft functional art, such as a birdhouse designed to look like a stack of books, or a cabinet and drawers touched with a veneer to give them a decades-old appearance, even if they were only built a month prior.
These pieces are often in demand with his clientele. Otherwise, a sports bar may contact him to draw portraits of legendary baseball players. Or a post office may ask him to create a specially designed cancellation stamp-one with the World Trade Center, the Statue of Liberty and the Star-Spangled Banner-for the one-year anniversary of 9/11.
Mr. and Mrs. Urban's relationship dates back nearly two decades ago. Both divorcees with five children between them, the couple was to marry in April 1995. But about a month before the date, Mr. Urban was involved in a life-changing car accident in Massachusetts that shattered his lower extremities so gruesomely that one femur split into six parts.
Brought to Bay State Hospital in Springfield, Mass., for crucial reconstructive surgery, he told his then fiancée that he and the Lord deemed it imperative they get married before that day's operation. In less than five hours, Mrs. Urban obtained all the necessary documentation, and with a nurse as her maid of honor and his roommate as his best man, the two were married in his hospital room.
He made it through the surgery, but wound up spending another month in the hospital, yet another year bedridden and five more years on crutches. Even today, some 14 years after the accident, he still walks with a limp.
But that hasn't prevented him from working on a variety of projects, some big, some bigger. Such is the case in the Urbans' dining room, which he turned into a wraparound mural of Federal-era Roxbury. Sitting at the dining room table, it almost appears as if the walls are transparent, and one is looking out to some of the original Colonial churches and homes that define the town center.
"Good news on a good day is coming home and seeing empty walls," joked Mrs. Urban, referring to her husband's ability to immerse himself in multiple projects simultaneously.
But that's probably not true. Mrs. Urban seems to enjoy everything about her husband's career, regardless of what it entails.
This has, after all, been his dream since he was 7 years old, a dream that came to full-time fruition in 1975 after years spent in various disciplines, including drawing survey maps and designing clock faces in the Urbans' hometown of Waterbury.
In the future, Mr. Urban hopes to showcase his work in a storefront. Perhaps it will have a mural inside of what the world is like outside. Maybe it will be painted as expressionist, or abstract, or realist, or an entirely different style he has never explored before. He can do it.
But all talk of a store is preliminary, so in the meantime people can visit www.lookingforanartist.com.