Time is running out to experience Lighthearted Dark Mess at Indah Gallery in the vineyards. Charles Lister’s works will be whisked away after Nov. 22.
“Lister’s meticulously crafted drawings invite us into a world that is perplexing yet oddly familiar. The power of Lister’s work lies in this tension—seemingly contradictory modalities coexist: whimsical and macabre, innocent and sinister, lighthearted and dark,” the gallery announced.
Step into Santa Ynez’s Indah Gallery to explore paradoxes, alternate realities, and contradictions that can’t be described in words.
“This is how I move through life. I’ve been creating since I could hold a pencil,” Lister said in press materials. “It’s not something I control entirely. Instead, it becomes a co-creation, a cathartic force that redeems the shadowed parts of me. Art, for me, is how I move through the battle within, transforming struggle into something greater.”
Indah Gallery was founded in 2025 by Max Gleason at Roblar Winery and Vineyards. Exhibits rotate periodically throughout the year. Visit Friday to Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. at 2190 N. Refugio Road in Santa Ynez. To schedule an appointment outside of operating hours, contact max@maxgleason.com.
Community members are invited to a talk with the artist on Nov. 15 at 2 p.m. See more artwork by the illustrator on Instagram @charleslister.
This article appears in November 12 – November 19, 2026.
