Stetla-ARI presents Anecdotes 3, a solo exhibition by Charlie Donaldson opening on 6 June 2026 and running until 13 June 2026 at 9 Ferry Road, West End.
In Anecdotes 3, Charlie Donaldson presents work unburdened by modern imaging software and technological innovation, instead finding interest through ambiguity, accumulation, and a deliberate lack of compositional logic.
Working across drawing, painting, sculpture, and printed media, Donaldson has developed a visual language haunted by the residual signs of the recent past. Their practice draws upon retro visual forms including Magic 8 Balls, board games, LSD blotter designs, Magic Eye books, illegal rave flyers, photocopied anarchist zines, and early hacker and cyber aesthetics. These references share a low-resolution, semi-obsolete visual language associated with underground circulation, altered states, prediction, and hidden knowledge.
Donaldson’s recent prints reprocess these design languages into dense arrangements of images sourced from deep within the internet. Part mood board, part storyboard, and part conspiracy wall, the works bring together art historical curiosities, instructional diagrams, everyday snapshots, and unplaceable cartoons in unexpected combinations. Through these juxtapositions, the exhibition suggests the presence of hidden systems and buried logic within contemporary image culture while resisting straightforward interpretation.
Accompanying the exhibition is MindMaze! (2026), a text by Spencer Harvie that traces Donaldson’s artistic development from early collaborative projects steeped in internet culture and conspiracy aesthetics to a contemporary practice that directly engages with the visual excess of the digital age. Together, the works reflect on memory, image circulation, nostalgia, and the increasingly complex relationship between people and the vast archives of online visual culture.
Image: Anecdote (enfant of scientology) 2026, Toner and foil on paper, 21×29.7cm
