Charlie Russell

Charlie Russell earned her BA in Painting at Camberwell College of Arts, 2023 and is currently studying MA Painting at the Royal College of Art. She has exhibited with Christie's, A.P.T Gallery and Southwark Park Galleries. She was awarded the Cass Art Material Grant 2022 and is part of the Working-Class Creatives Database. She is the 9th recipient of their studio residency with SET Woolwich 2024.

Straddling the boundaries between digital and the traditional medium of painting, Charlie’s works exhibit glitchy aesthetics with organic sensibilities. Works assess how the two mediums interact and confront contemporary issues. Converting organic shapes into indeterminate forms, Charlie proposes alternative living spaces - an invitation into working-class homes, blurring the boundaries between stability and chaos, where domesticity meets claustrophobia. She draws on early experiences navigating such spaces, raised by her father and with an absent mother, and how she confronts her own femininity.

Recalling early memories of finding solace in light during times of distress, Charlie examines the disparities between natural and artificial illumination, delving into their behaviours as they traverse, reflect, and influence the self. Sunlight forcing its way into the home in the early hours after an unpredictable night, warming concrete structures contrasts with the flickering yellow light found in the fire escape of her flats or streetlamp dispersing through water droplets on the window of her dads car as she recalls them driving between places as a child. Ultimately, Charlie is drawn to the sensationalism of light; its presence throughout her life in the unpredictability of her mother.