River Currents 2.0, the exhibit at the Southern Ohio Museum in Portsmouth, showcasing regional artists, closes this weekend.

In his works for the River Currents exhibit, Portsmouth artist Charlie Haskins turned this his ability to animals.

“They kind of wanted to organize it around a theme,” he said. “They (wanted) each artists to do work related to animals in some way, so I’ve been doing a lot of that kind of thing lately. One of the things that has been kind of different with me about the illustration paintings are they’re a lot more fun, because I get to do new things. Like I never painted an alligator before, so I painted one for the show. Or a buffalo. So it’s kind of like a little bit of variety for me, in subject matter. It’s like a different kind of challenge each time. So, mostly, this show is made out of that. Then I’ve got some of the paintings of Portsmouth there too.”

These Portsmouth city scenes, he explained, grew out of his experience teaching painting at Shawnee State University. He wanted to get his students outside of the classroom, doing some plein air painting. As a result, he found himself spending more time documenting the city himself, and trying to help tell its story.

“In doing so many paintings of the area now, I’ll put different kind of Easter eggs and local history or icons in it,” he said. “So, the first thing was painting the bridge a lot. Then it was kind of like, ‘well, I need to make it different for each painting. Tell a story or look a certain way that’s better for the painting rather than a good depiction of the bridge or like a photographic reference. So that’s what I have fun doing now, is just bending things. Twisting shapes so that it can be a more interesting picture to look at, rather than the way the eye would see it.”

River Currents 2.0 is on exhibit through this Saturday, Jan. 14, at the Southern Ohio Museum, 825 Gallia Street in Portsmouth, Ohio. In addition to Haskins, it features the work of Rosemount hooked rug artist Carole Estepp, and the sculpture of Gallipolis based multimedia artist Kevin Lyles. Haskins work can also be seen at his Portsmouth studio and shop, Haskins House, at 536 2nd Street in the Boneyfiddle district.

You can also find more info about Haskins online at haskinshouse.com. You can find out more about the Southern Ohio Museum, including the River Currents exhibit, at somacc.com.