Charlotte Edey is a British artist and illustrator. Her work is primarily concerned with contemporary issues of selfhood. Cultural signifiers and personal mythologies shape 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 Stillwater at Roberts Gallery, Glasgow (2022), Echolocation at PUBLIC Gallery, London (2019) and Artist of the Day at Flowers Gallery, London (2018). Two person and group shows include Supermarket at the Design Museum, London (2021), Body en Thrall at Rugby Art Museum (2022), Psychic Anemone at Cob Gallery, London (2021), Subversive Stitch at TJ Boulting, London (2019), Transatlantico at MANA Contemporary, USA (2020) and The Great Women Artists at Palazzo Monti, Italy (2019).

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, Financial Times, Creative Review, Dezeen, Elephant, Wallpaper, British Vogue, It’s Nice That, Dazed, Elle, AnOther Magazine, Vanity Fair & more.

:: solo EXHIBITIONS ::

2022 Stillwater, Robert’s Gallery, Glasgow (UK)
2019 Echolocation, Public Gallery, London (UK)
2018 Artist of the Day, Flowers Gallery, London (UK)

:: selected group EXHIBITIONS ::

2022 Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London (UK, upcoming)
2022 Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Humber Street Gallery & Ferens Art Gallery, Hull (UK, upcoming)
2022 New Mythologies II, Huxley Parlour, London (UK, upcoming)
2022 Best of the Drawing Year, Christies, London (UK)
2022 Degree Show, The Royal Drawing School, London (UK)
2022 Body en Thrall, Rugby Art Museum, Rugby (UK)
2021 Psychic Anemone, Cob Gallery, London (UK)
2021 Abracadabra!, Alma Zevi, London (UK)
2021 Supermarket, The Design Museum, London (UK)
2021 From Cellar to Garret, South Parade, London (UK)
2020 Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, London (UK)
2020 Transatlantico, MANA Contemporary, Jersey City (USA)
2020 Ancient Deities, Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh (UK)
2020 No Time Like The Present, Public Gallery, London (UK)
2020 This Tragedy, Ginny on Frederick satellite show at Fonda, Leipzig (Germany)
2019 The Great Women Artists curated by Katy Hessel, Palazzo Monti, Brescia (Italy)
2019 ING Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London (UK)
2019 Motherline, Flowers Gallery, London (UK)
2019 Subversive Stitch , TJ Boulting, London (UK)
2019 Dark Night of the Soul, Lewisham Arthouse, London (UK)
2018 In the Company Of, TJ Boulting, London (UK)
2018 The Great Women Artists curated by Katy Hessel at Mother, London (UK)

:: AWARDS & RESIDENCIES ::

2022 The Cass Art Prize, Royal Drawing School
2022 Torre Al Cerro Residency, Tuscany (Italy) 
2022 Borgo Pignano Royal Drawing School Residency (Italy)
2019 The Great Women Artists Residency, Palazzo Monti (Italy)