Performance Drawing Embodied Spaces & Traces
Sound of Becoming Visible, Performance Drawing, 2022 - 2023
My work is a conversation between drawing, painting & performance. I consider a durational sense of being & becoming; the internal/external spaces that we inhabit. I make embodied drawings, capturing an essence of ephemeral moments & subjectivity. Through the presence of marks & language of traces these transient notions become more tangible. I consider the life spaces I inhabit as woman, mother, daughter, & transitions of, & through, phases in life.
Sound Of Becoming Visible (2022 - 2023)
A performance drawing, exploring physical and emotional traces through time and space. This piece started as a private studio performance, experimenting with the limits and boundaries of my body, I produced a video of the performance and still images. In December 2023, I performed this piece live in front of an audience at Rupturexibit. The piece developed over time, working on a large canvas on the floor and directly on to the walls, the drawing and presence of marks remained exhibited in the gallery between performances.
I challenged myself to try something new, for the first time performing in front of a live audience. I performed five times over the duration of the show, developing the work further. A crit discussion with the other artists in the show provided an opportunity to talk about the work and get feedback.
A moment of reflection following the first performance at Rupturexibit, December 2023.
The sound of the charcoal on the canvas and wall, the sound of breath and movement. The sound of becoming visible, the sound of becoming.
Tides (All at Sea) (2023)
Tides (All at Sea) (2023)
Layering time, a relationship with gesture and mark making, tides, rising and falling, ebb and flow.
When you do dance I wish you
When you do Dance I Wish you (2016)
Collaborative project, Everyday People, I choreographed a dance piece with three professional dancers, exploring ideas of moving in and between phases in life and my experience of becoming a mother.
Everyday people was directed by Sally Marie Sweetshop Revolution, produced by Rachel Deadman, The Dance Movement, and supported by Farnham Maltings.
Specialist Mentors & Cultural Partners
In taking away the video and editing process and revealing the performance drawing itself to an audience, there was a raw and powerful energy that feels like a hugely significant step in my creative practice.
The drawing leaving its trace on me led me to be curious about developing the work, the work felt almost as if performing a ritual, part of that process seemed to be the washing away of the marks.
On the final peformance night I added two new elements to the performance, bringing ashes of past performance drawings that I had been collecting to add to the drawing and washing away the charcoal from my hands, feet and face with soap and water.
The smell of the soap, the sound of washing and water. Relics.
Loie (2023)
Loie (2023)
Moving, merging.
Mother, daughter, Waning crescent
Mother, Daughter, Waning Crescent, (2022) Cyanotype on Cotton
Cyanotype on cotton. Phases, traces, light, duration, time.
“[The body as] direct mediator between the inner world and the outer.”
Inhabited spaces woman/mother/daughter/artist/
Embodied space
Gesture, movement, marks
Domestic spaces/interactions with nature
Cycles/phases/traces/rituals & transitions
The mark holding the possibility of the body
“ Charlie’s work engages themes of temporality and gesture, whilst she considers her body as performer within and of the artworks, through feminist philosophies in a fleeting autobiographical way... Her artworks exist in a position of translation, reflection, fragmentation and the moment. She encapsulates dynamism and emotion in the same space, the same gesture, devolving the presence (and absence) of the artist. ”