Michael Ray Charles

In his colorful and graphic paintings and prints, Charles employs Black caricatures and stereotypes such as the Sambo, Aunt Jemima, grinning pickaninnies, and Uncle Tom, to comment on contemporary racial attitudes.

[2] To show connections between the past and the present, Charles takes common Black stereotypical characters and reinterprets them in contemporary ways.

However, in a painting where Charles parodies Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter, the Aunt Jemima is portrayed as kind of heroine.

"His works are one-sheets, posters for movies that Hollywood would never have the nerve to make, exploring race and sex in this country.

A 2003 article in Black Issues In Higher Education acknowledges Charles as one of the top future African-American scholars under forty.

He has served as a panelist for National Endowment for the Arts and jurors for The Bush Artist Fellowship and the Inaugural Biennial Underground Railroad Exhibition.

His work was included in the 2006 documentary Race is the Place and exhibitions at Cotthem Gallery in Barcelona and the PMMK Museum of Modern Art in Ostend, Belgium.

His work remains the subject of books, magazines, and newspaper articles and is included in many public and private collection.

[9] In 2014, Charles was appointed the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Painting in the School of Art at the University of Houston.