artist | london | edey_

 

Charlotte Edey is a British artist and illustrator. Her work is primarily concerned with contemporary issues of selfhood. Cultural signifiers and personal mythologies inform ongoing narratives through a process of world-building. The politics of space are explored through the lens of identity; how the intersections of identities both shape our interior landscapes and define the structuring that we navigate externally. Her imagined realms are peppered with symbolist motifs that connote the body politic, magic, the erotic, biracialism and gender. Her process combines tapestry, embroidery and sculptural walnut as an expansion of her drawing practice. This journey between dimensions from her works on paper – what is added, altered and even removed by these multiple processes – creates a layered complexity in both material and theme. Mark-making and gesture are explored through hand-embroidery in silk, forging a relationship between drawn line and thread. Her installations reference ritualistic methods of display from altarpieces to shrines, forming portals to imagined otherworlds that offer the opportunity to investigate our present.  

Solo shows include Artist of the Day at Flowers Gallery, London (2018) and Echolocation at PUBLIC Gallery, London (2019). Two person and group shows include Supermarket at the Design Museum, London (2021), Psychic Anemone at Cob Gallery, London (2021), Subversive Stitch at TJ Boulting, London (2019), Transatlantico at MANA Contemporary, USA (2020), Mall Galleries, London (2019), The Great Women Artists at Palazzo Monti, Italy (2019) and Ancient Deities at Arusha Gallery, Scotland (2020).

Selected illustration clients include Apple, Miu Miu, The New Yorker, New York Times, The Design Museum, Penguin Random House, CNN, Soho House, GQ, WeTransfer & Bombay Sapphire. See more commissioned work here.

Her work has been featured in Artsy, Creative Review, Financial Times, Dezeen, Elephant, Wallpaper, It’s Nice That, Dazed, Elle, AnOther Magazine, Vanity Fair & more.

:: solo EXHIBITIONS ::

echolocation @ public gallery (London, 2019)
artist of the day @ flowers gallery, cork street (London, 2018)

:: selected group EXHIBITIONS ::

2022
best of the drawing year @ christies, 25th March – 31st March (London)
the drawing year end of year exhibition @ the royal drawing school, 8th April – 14th April (London)
body en thrall @ rugby art museum (Rugby)
pathways on paper @ south parade (London)
2021
psychic anemone @ cob gallery (London)
abracadabra! @ alma zevi (London)
supermarket @ design museum (London)
from cellar to garret @ south parade (London)
2020
small is beautiful @ flowers gallery, cork street (London)
transatlantico @ MANA contemporary (Jersey City)
ancient deities @ arusha gallery (Edinburgh)
no time like the present @ public gallery (online/London)
this tragedy w/ ginny on frederick @ fonda (online/Leipzig)
2019
the great women artists @ palazzo monti (Brescia)
ING discerning eye @ mall galleries (London)
motherline @ flowers gallery, kingsland road (London)
subversive stitch @ tj boulting (London)
dark night of the soul @ lewisham arthouse (London)
2018 
every thing @ assembly point (London)
in the company of @ tj boulting (London)
the great women artists @ mother london (London)