Charlie holds an MA in Fine Art with Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London with a BA Hons degree in Fine Art. Charlie has a studio in the Surrey Hills and has exhibited widely nationally. Recent exhibitions include A.P.T. Gallery, London, The Watts Gallery, The Empire Gallery, Vyner Street, Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston, Canary Wharf Cabot Place Gallery, The Menier Gallery, London and The Lewis Elton Gallery, Guildford.
As a qualified tutor and lecturer Charlie has fellowship status of the Higher Education Academy. She has worked as an Educational Developer at Goldsmiths, University of London and Kingston University and as a Lecturer for the University of Surrey. She has extensive teaching experience in a wide range of settings including schools, universities and community groups and has worked with children, young people and adult learners and currently works in learning and engagement at the Watts Gallery.
Charlie is available to teach art classes and workshops to children, young people and adults. For more information contact
Article by Anna Garrett in She Performs
Charlie Betts
Charlie Betts is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, performance, installation, video and participatory collaboration. She studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths and Kingston University. 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. She collaborates with other women artists, pushing the boundaries of her own practice. Notably within the collaborative works of artist group [NAME], pieces tend to lean towards an ephemerality, ambiguity, multi-dimensional feminine space - where spontaneity and humour often appear in the works.
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. Through a rollercoaster of a year, her recent works are an expression of the personal, yet political. Charlie’s practice engages her dual role as a woman and a mother, individual and collaborator. Charlie’s abstract paintings encapsulate a sense of aliveness, and feminine energy that comes from a raw place. As a viewer engaging with the works in the flesh, their sensuality, painterly surfaces and colour palettes seem to border an unconscious gesture. Re-connecting painting to a position of bodily presence and time-based sense of phenomenology, letting the piece form in front of her - Charlie considers painting as a metamorphosis of object, textile and performance, constantly pushing and pulling between construction and deconstruction.
Through engagement with a sense of contemporary feminist theory, the history of women’s suffrage and notions of the gaze, she considers what it means for her to be a woman artist working in the U.K. now, an artist in motherhood, and how this affects her practice. Charlie encompasses a variety of collaborations - in which a flexible and resilient approach expands her artistic identity. When you dance, I wish you, a piece co-choreographed in 2016 by the artist with dance company Everyday People, explored autobiographical elements that Charlie describes as ‘major shifts and phases of life’. It was both beautiful and moving to see a time-based piece so personal and experiential, exploring a huge change her life - of becoming a mother.
Biography
Education
2010 - 2012 MA Fine Art with Teaching & Learning for Higher Education, Kingston University
2001 - 2004 BA (Hons) Fine Art, Goldsmiths, University of London
2000 - 2001 HNC Fine Art, Kensington & Chelsea College
1999 - 2000 Art Foundation, Wimbledon School of Art
Selected Exhibitions
Solo Shows
2014 Riverside Gallery, Farnham Maltings, Surrey
2009 Lewis Elton Gallery, University of Surrey
2007 Cranleigh Arts Centre, Surrey
2004 Lila, Liverpool Street, London
Group Shows
2017
[NAME] at 4Cose for Women's History Month
2016
[NAME] Command Archive Data, Goldsmiths, London Painting as Ruin, Harts Lane, London Thread & Contemporary Art, Riverside Gallery, Farnham Maltings When you do dance, I wish you, Everyday People, Farnham
2015
[NAME] The Rite (Renew), Harts Lane, London
2014
Thread, Farnham Maltings [NAME] The London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery [NAME] Tracks 3, Platform One Gallery, London [NAME] Tracks 2, Platform One Gallery, London
2013
[NAME] Tracks 1, Platform One Gallery, London [NAME] Chart, Brixton East Gallery, London [NAME] The Rite Performance, Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) conference, The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Glasgow University Circus & Bread, The Banquet, Stanley Picker Gallery Circus & Bread, Happiness We're all in it together, The Albert, London
2012
Circus & Bread IV, Collective Tables, Kingston Circus & Bread III, Kingston Will happiness find me? Hannah Barry Gallery, London Surface, Colart, London Clyde & Co, Guildford Arts, Surrey
2011
Circus & Bread II, The Undercroft, Guildford Circus & Bread I, Kingston
2010
Edge, The Empire Gallery, Degree Art, Vyner Street, London
2009
Little Women, Andover RISC, Reading Glimpse, Cabot Place Gallery, Canary Wharf
2008
The Undercroft, Guildford The Arts Engine, Farnham Maltings Show UP, Menier Chocolate Factory, London Surrey Artists Open Studios, Surrey Baker Tilly, Guildford Arts, Surrey
2007
The Arts Engine, Open Studio, Surrey Cranleigh Arts Centre, Surrey
2005
Art Your Service Gallery, Tunbridge Wells
2004
Recreating Constable’s Haywain, BBC Programme
Residencies
2016 - 2017 [NAME] Women's Art Library, Goldsmiths 2013 - 2014 [NAME] Platform One Gallery, London 2004 - 2005 Cranleigh Arts Centre, Surrey