Charles is an award-winning set and costume designer for theatre, opera, dance and film.

Charles’ designs for opera include: Rusalka (Opera Conference); La Bohème (West Australian Opera and Opera Queensland); La Traviata (Opera Queensland / West Australian Opera / State Opera South Australia); Médée, Artaserse, The Coronation of Poppea (Pinchgut Opera); Seven Deadly Sins & Mahagonny Songspiel set design (Red Line Productions); Breaking Glass, Biographica (Sydney Festival), Oh Mensch! costume design (Sydney Chamber Opera); Ned Kelly (Perth Festival/Lost and Found Opera); and Hansel and Gretel (Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University).

Charles’ other designs include: An Iliad, The Importance of Being Earnest set, Do Not Go Gentle, No Pay? No Way!, Rules for Living, The Real Thing (Sydney Theatre Company); Twelfth Night (Bell Shakespeare); Illume (Bangarra Dance Theatre); Elastic Hearts (Queensland Ballet); The Chronicles, Manifesto (Stephanie Lake Company); Circle Electric (The Australian Ballet); Art (Newtheatricals).

Charles won a Sydney Theatre Award for Best Stage Design of an Independent Production for Happy Days and was awarded the Mike Walsh Fellowship in 2018. He also received the Kristian Fredrikson Scholarship for Design in the Performing Arts for his outstanding design work.