Artist Profile: Charles Hively
Overview
Charles Hively is a Brooklyn-based photographer whose work discovers unexpected poetry in the overlooked textures of urban life. With a background in design and publishing, Hively approaches photography with a precise, editorial eye—capturing chance moments that transform signage, decay, and surface disruption into minimalist visual compositions.
In his New York Subway Found Art series, Hively documents fragments of torn and worn subway posters, revealing accidental abstractions shaped by time and environment. These images are not manipulated but discovered, making each piece a celebration of impermanence, entropy, and visual serendipity.
Featured Artwork
Bushwick Gallery
Artwork Title: New York Subway Found Art
Year of Creation: 2022
Medium: Digital Photography
Dimensions: 20 in x 24 in
Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA
Description:
In New York Subway Found Art, Hively captures a moment of unintentional sculpture—a peeling poster mid-detachment, curling and folding into a dynamic, tactile form. The interplay of color, text, and texture becomes an abstract study in motion and imperfection. By reframing urban detritus as aesthetic object, the piece invites viewers to slow down and find beauty in the transient and overlooked.