Michael Ray Charles is a painter whose carefully crafted and faux-aged canvases and works on paper draw attention to race relations historically and in contemporary society. Borrowing pop culture images of characters such as Sambo, Buckwheat, and Aunt Jemima, Charles uses them ironically to comment on racial issues. His concerns range from how tobacco and liquor companies target marketing to minorities to the depiction of African Americans in the entertainment and sports industries to concepts of all-Americ