Charles Wildbank is an American painter, photographer, muralist, and poet born in 1948. Profoundly deaf since birth, he began drawing at an early age as a means of communication, developing a heightened visual awareness that became central to his artistic practice. He studied at Yale University, earned a BFA from Pratt Institute, and later completed a master’s degree in education at Columbia University.Wildbank is best known for his large-scale photorealist paintings, including portraits, still lifes, florals, seascapes, and dramatically enlarged everyday objects. His work combines meticulous observation with vivid colour, precise technique, and a strong sense of theatrical scale. Alongside his realist compositions, he has also produced more experimental works incorporating photography, digital imagery, abstraction, and surrealist elements.Throughout his career, Wildbank has created portraits of notable cultural figures, including David Hockney and Luciano Pavarotti, and has completed major public and corporate commissions. Among his best-known projects are monumental murals produced for Cunard’s ocean liner Queen Mary 2. His work has also been presented in exhibitions and commissioned by prominent private and institutional clients.Wildbank’s later HADO series extends his interest in realism into dreamlike and symbolic territory. Inspired by water, movement, memory, and the natural world, these compositions combine photographic references with fluid forms and imaginative visual narratives. Across his diverse practice, Wildbank explores perception, communication, and the expressive possibilities of scale.