Cecilia Charlton, Aurora

CECILIA CHARLTON aurora

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CECILIA CHARLTON aurora

12 Northgate, Chichester West Susssex PO19 1BA ++44 (0)1243 528401 / 07794 416569 info@candidastevens.com www.candidastevens.com @candida_stevens

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London-based American artist Cecilia Charlton creates technicolour, highly-patterned textile works that reference personal and cultural histories while questioning notions of medium by bringing together traditions of painting, craft, abstraction, and folk art. At the Royal College of Art Cecilia trained in painting. However the influence of a life time, observing her mother, aunt, sisters and grand-mother working with textiles is embedded and it is working with threads that has allowed her to master her unique and original style, works that combine a bold use of colour, a confident use of design, and a heady blend of traditional with contemporary. Shape-shifting compositions appear with a visual flickering as their forms simultaneously subsume and embrace, and their colours confound and complement.

Aesthetically revolving around formal references to abstraction, the works’ titles often reveal autobiographical content. Drawing on her upbringing in Corning, New York State, within a family that valued both science and sewing, Cecilia’s artworks combine her personal history with an intuition and passion for abstraction and colour theory. These factors when blended with traditional methods, materials and motifs result in artworks that have an optically challenging, colourful and playful approach, questioning the hierarchy between paint and fibre. Her meticulous creative process requires an attentiveness, a seriousness, but the implementation of colour allows for a simultaneous feeling of levity and joy.

Hand-sewing is integral to the work. Time, as a result, becomes central to the work because of the time-consuming nature of needlecraft.

The works themselves indirectly evoke a sense of timelessness and ephemera, they seem at once preserved and yet contemporary.

Questions of feminism, gender roles, and social justice are inherently part of the work. What does it mean for a woman to sew today? Is it feminist? Is it anti-feminist? Spanning the mediums of textiles, installation, and art in the social sphere, the work results in conversation tending towards both the personal and the political.

When you meet Cecilia you perceive an intellect and a wisdom, she is a thinker and a feeler. It is perhaps the coalition of these factors that make her work so enticing. Unable to decipher the work too readily, feeling the collision of something beautiful, while knowing this to be an insufficient term, and noticing that implicit in the work is a sense of rebellion and confidence, one is pushed back from an original assumption and challenged to reevaluate. What do these works say and do you feel engaged? I am most certainly stimulated by these pieces and am delighted by my inability to categorize them too directly. May the deftness of these works, combined with the ancestry of the influences and the intellect of the artist delight you also.

Candida Stevens September 2020

Michael Pollan is an author who wrote ‘How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics’, 2018. The book delves into the rich history of psychedelics in America, tracing back to the early research in the fifties. Pollan worked with neuroscientists who use psychedelics in conjunction with modern brain imaging technologies to probe the mysteries of consciousness and the self. While working on these artworks, Cecilia heard an interview with Pollan discussing the process of researching his book. His research seemed to make permissible the psychedelic aesthetics of these works, an aesthetic one might not typically associate with fine art.

In the development of these works Cecilia had a compositional curiosity that she wanted to explore. In part I, she wanted to use the bargello patterns themselves to create forms within the work. She relied on the patterns to create the shapes within the composition. As she intuitively worked through the composition the patterns took on a life of their own, merging, mulitplying and overlapping.

In part II, she was curious to see how the patterns might function when fragmented. She created part II in layers, covering the whole surface of the canvas with the outline of one pattern before covering the rest of the available surface with subsequent fragmented patterns. She approached both of these works with a desire to know more about the bargello patterns themselves – to break them apart and see their components, to ‘take them out to the highway and let them run at full speed’.

These works were important as the foundation of the bargello works that Cecilia has created since, allowing her to learn and familiarise with the individual patterns, in order to use them in a more innovative way.

It might’ve been a walk-in spirit (according to my 72-year-old Peruvian roommate), 2018 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel 60 x 120 cm page 5 Michael Pollan says it’s OK . . . , part I, 2018 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel 63.5 x 87 cm page 6 4

Michael Pollan says it’s OK . . . , part II, 2018 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel 63.5 x 87 cm page 7

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Earth series, 2019 Science was an important part of Cecilia’s upbringing. This is largely the influence of her father, who studied physics before pursuing his MBA. While Cecilia did not become a scientist, she retains a passion for the natural world.

Something she finds distressing is our inability or unwillingness to confront climate change. At times Cecilia feels a sense of guilt that she is not a geologist, that she doesn’t work every day to study and solve this issue.

The decision to make this series arose from a desire to contribute to the cause of climate change. The three components of the series (Plant, Water, and Fire) all pay tribute to these elements of our planet. Cecilia attempts to capture their spirit and celebrate not only their aesthetics but also their essential nature.

The use of the word ‘matter’ in the titles is a play on words – while the works conceptually revolve around the material nature of fire, earth, and plants, the works also encourage the viewer to realise that these things matter.

Fire Matter (Earth series) [triptych], 2019 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel Triptych, Each piece 60 x 60 cm page 10-11

Plant Matter (Earth series), 2019 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel with gold leaf 60 x 80 cm page 12

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Water Matter (Earth series), 2019 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel with gold leaf 80 x 120 cm page 13

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Diamonds have been used as symbols for many purposes throughout human history. Its shape is charged and potent. In this artwork, Cecilia focuses on a diamonds potential to signify inner focus and balance, as well as female sexuality.

The lozenge motif dates from the Neolithic and Paleolithic period in Eastern Europe and represents a sown field and female fertility. The motif can also have a reference to inner balance. Its shape consists of two triangles, one pointing downward and one upward, joined together. This geometric symbol represents the inner focus that a human being needs to sustain; the task is to install balance within oneself and to reflect this inner balance onto the outer world.

This work aesthetically revolves around the motif of diamonds. Diamonds are inset in other diamonds which are overlaid on top of each other, repeating to almost dizzying effect. The lace is laid over a fabric which itself has a blurred focus, adding to the distortion of vision and further complicating our ability to orient our viewpoint. The repetition of diamonds acts as a meditation, inviting us to repeatedly refocus our thoughts on the shape. There is a sensitivity created by the stitched silk, in subtle tones of green, pink, and purple.

Through the implementation of these materials and this ancient symbol, Cecilia questions and pursues a relationship to herself, and thus hopes to create that possibility for others too.

A certain slant of light (labyrinthine pathways of diamonds) [triptych], 2020 Hand-embroidered silk on lace and cotton fabric over panel 40 x 85 cm

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Triple-layer gather-gusset series, 2019-2020 Cecilia’s grandmother, born in Iowa, USA in 1924, developed a passion for sewing that drove her to pursue an MA degree in textiles, an uncommon achievement for a woman of that time. Cecilia’s mother inherited her grandmother’s deep passion and curiosity for textiles, making clothes for the entire family and working on both private and public projects involving this skill. Now Cecilia and her sister continue this fascination, the third generation, hence triplelayer. At the age of 9 Cecilia made her first sampler on a long car journey, an experience that taught her patience, attentiveness, diligence, all key traits to the work she makes today.

The Bargello technique is a needlepoint consisting of vertical flat stitches laid in a mathematical pattern dating back to the 17th century. “When I look at the Triple-layer gather-gusset series, it occurs to me that the series as a whole functions as a sampler. I am, through play and experimentation, familiarising myself and the viewer with my favourite variations of the bargello technique.”

This work consists of three elements, which can then serve as a metaphor for her family history; The fabric represents Cecilia’s grandmother.

The lace represents Cecilia’s mother.

The embroidery represents Cecilia.

No element takes a primary role. Each is supportive and integral to the whole. Each mirrors a generation.

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Triple-layer gather-gusset [pink-purple harmony], 2020 Hand-embroidered silk on lace and cotton fabric over panel 15 x 15 cm

Triple-layer gather-gusset [purple-grey northern lights], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm 17

Triple-layer gather-gusset [yellow-red lattice], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm 18

Triple-layer gather-gusset [yellow diamonds], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm

Triple-layer gather-gusset [blue Jacobean spires], 2020 Hand-embroidered silk on lace and cotton fabric over panel 15 x 15 cm

Triple-layer gather-gusset [blue hearts], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm 19

Triple-layer gather-gusset [blue tulips], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm 20

Triple-layer gather-gusset [red squares], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm

Triple-layer gather-gusset [green-blue northern lights], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm

Triple-layer gather-gusset [green-grey exotica], 2020 Hand-embroidered silk on lace and cotton fabric over panel 15 x 15 cm 21

Triple-layer gather-gusset [green balls], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm 22

Triple-layer gather-gusset [grey diamonds], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm

Triple-layer gather-gusset [grey trees], 2020 Hand-embroidered silk on lace and cotton fabric over panel 15 x 15 cm

Triple-layer gather-gusset [yellow chevrons], 2020 Hand-embroidered silk on lace and fabric over panel 15 x 15 cm 23

Triple-layer gather-gusset [yellow-pink-blue pomegranates], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm 24

Triple-layer gather-gusset [red-blue northern lights], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm

Triple-layer gather-gusset [red pomegranates], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace and cotton fabric over panel 15 x 15 cm

Triple-layer gather-gusset [red-red northern lights], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm 25

Triple-layer gather-gusset [teal-periwinkle points and arches], 2020 Hand-embroidered silk on lace and cotton fabric over panel 15 x 15 cm 26

Triple-layer gather-gusset [green shells], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace over panel 15 x 15 cm

Villa of Columns, Pompeii, 2019 This series relates to the Triple-layer gather-gusset works, but in this artwork, the lace is laid over multiple pieces of fabric that have been sewn together instead of the single piece of fabric. The combination of multiple fabrics creates a sense of ground and landscape. Upon completion of the artwork, it reminded Cecilia of what the Villa of Mosaic Columns at Pompeii might have looked like, or at least what feelings might have been evoked there.

Villa of Columns, Pompeii [triptych], 2019 Hand-embroidered silk on lace and pieced cotton fabric over panel 72 x 15.5 cm 27

Depression Era [cast glass] series, 2020 Depression glass is clear or coloured translucent machine made glassware that was distributed free, or at low cost, in the United States and Canada around the time of the Great Depression. Depression glass is so called because collectors generally associate mass-produced glassware found in pink, yellow, crystal, or green with the years surrounding the Great Depression in America.

Growing up in Corning NY (some call it the ‘glass capital of the world’), many school field trips for Cecilia Charlton were to the Glass Museum, where a visitor can see examples of glassware ranging from Ancient Egypt to Contemporary Art Glass. Depression Era glass always struck her with its beauty, its iridescence, its relationship to the glass of the Ancient Egyptians with scarab-beetle colours. Made during the 2020 lockdown this series has a historic and personal significance for the artist.

Depression Era [cast glass], 2020 Top row: yellow-green, peach, azure Bottom row: goldenrod, purple, green Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel 15 x 15 cm each

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Depression Era [cut glass] series, 2020

Depression Era [cut glass], 2020 Top row: peach, green, periwinkle Middle row: yellow green, goldenrod, salmon Bottom row: grey, blue, raspberry Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel 15 x 15 cm each 30

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A year in retrograde series, 2020 Under the scientific influence of her father, the planets became a childhood interest for Cecilia. In her adult life, her appreciation for the celestial bodies has been furthered by an interest in astrology. The series of work meditates on the planets physical characteristics as well as their more esoteric properties.

Astronomically, retrogrades happen as Earth is passing or being passed by other planets. A planet seemingly moving backward is an illusion, as planets always revolve around the sun in the same direction, but the appearance of retrograde motion occurs because of the relative difference in speed. Astrologically, when we try to understand the meaning of a planet moving backward, the first thing to note is that it's a fairly rare occurrence. The vast majority of planetary motion is direct, so direct becomes "normal." Most of the time, planets move in forward motion. Simply by being contrary to the normal flow, retrograde motion represents an exception, or perhaps even a challenge, to this sense of normalcy.

Since retrograde motion is so radically different than the norm, it's not a surprise that many people often experience it as disruptive. The question, then, is whether disruption is a bad thing. In the end, a change in perspective might give us access to an opportunity we would have missed otherwise. Viewed through this lens, perhaps retrograde misadventures can become worth it - even transformative. So, in conclusion, retrograde events are disruptive, but as a result of this disruption offer us the opportunity to reflect and change.

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A year in retrograde [Mercury, Venus, Earth], 2020 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel 32 x 20 cm 33

A year in retrograde [Mars, Jupiter, Saturn], 2020 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel 32 x 20 cm 34

A year in retrograde [Uranus, Neptune, Pluto], 2020 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel 32 x 20 cm 35

Quilted Compositions [awkward paintings series], 2020 Cecilia’s mother, mother-in-law, aunt, grandmother, and great grandmother all make quilts. While Cecilia finds quilts inspiring and has a love for their aesthetic, she has never felt compelled to create one herself.

These artworks express a creativity inspired by quilts, but within the modes of expression in Cecilia’s wheelhouse. Sewn pieces of fabric are stretched around a painting stretcher, embroidered with abstract, geometric embroidery that has an element of colour play. Lightly-shaded coloured pencils create undulating landscapes that mimic a quilt’s bunchy surface. The stitches in the paper further the world play in referencing quilting stitches, perhaps making the artwork closer to a quilt than to a drawing.

These awkward paintings relate to Cecilia in a personal way. They are a physical manifestation of her inner personality and for this reason she finds them incredibly poignant.

Quilted Composition [awkward painting 1], 2020 Sewn cotton fabric, hand-embroidered cotton thread 40 x 36 cm

Quilted Composition [awkward painting 2], 2020 Sewn cotton and polyester fabric, hand-embroidered cotton thread 36 x 46 cm

Quilted Composition [awkward painting 3], 2020 Sewn cotton and silk fabric, hand-embroidered cotton thread 50 x 50 cm 36

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B/W Abstract Compositions, 2018 Cecilia created these two works on a Christmas holiday with her family in the US. During the last few hours of the drive to a remote cabin in the Adirondacks, a huge snow and ice storm struck the area, almost preventing her arrival. Nine days of snow followed, creating a white frozen landscape, and the huge windows of the cabin, reaching to the roof’s peak, made the frozen world seem present from within.

Cecilia created these two monochrome needlepoints while looking out of those windows at the surrounding wonderland. Their monochromatic palette a possible response to the snow and the early, dark nights, these works have a sense of play with their composition, which perhaps becomes more prominent due to the absence of colour.

B/W Abstract Composition I & II, 2018 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel 32 x 20 cm (page 41) Rainbows on Titan Series (in memoriam to my childhood drawings), 2018 (pages 42-43) On a visit home, Cecilia looked through her childhood drawings kept by her mother, fascinated by the different subject matter she herself and her siblings gravitated towards. While her older sister’s drawings reflect her passion for animals and her younger sister’s her sensitivity and interest in narrative, Cecilia repeatedly drew the same two things: rainbows and unicorns.

This interest in replicating similar motifs, along with her inherent passion for colour and attraction towards the supernatural and the mystical, is visible in her current works, and thus, her childhood ideas have possibly been an unconscious inspiration.

This series of artworks meditates on her childhood drawings and seeks to reinvent those interests in a mature form. The title, ‘Rainbows on Titan’, refers to a theory that rainbows could be visible from the surface of Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. Titan’s atmosphere is ‘wet’ with humidity and rain; a moistness comprised of methane rather than liquid water. Titan would have both rain and sunlight, necessary for the formation of a rainbow and therefore, it is possible that rainbows occur on its surface. This image captures Cecilia’s imagination to not only exist on an extra-terrestrial surface, but also to witness an event similar to that which we see on Earth. Would a rainbow on Titan be more or less miraculous? Would its existence make Earth’s rainbows more fantastic, as a companion piece to those elsewhere in the universe - or simply the expected result of rain and light?

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Rainbows on Titan (in memoriam to my childhood drawings) [orange, red and grey], 2018 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel 24 x 16 cm 42

Rainbows on Titan (in memoriam to my childhood drawings) [goldenrod, turquoise and purple], 2020 Hand-embroidered wool on canvas over panel 24 x 16 cm

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Education: 2016 - 2018 Royal College of Art, London UK

MA Painting, Distinction 2012-2015 Hunter College, New York NY

BFA Painting, Summa Cum Laude Exhibitions: 2020

when you make sense I feel, Fitzrovia Gallery, London

2019

In Praise of Shadows, curated by Ione & Mann, London Parade, Broadway Gallery, curated by Kris Day, Letchworth Garden City UK Domestic Hospitality, Zetter Hotel, London RA Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of the Arts, London Tender Touches, AMP Gallery, London Grid :: Preset, Blyth Gallery, London

2018

FAKERS, curated by Cypher Collective, Thamesside Gallery, London Lifeline as Medium, 532 Gallery, NYC STUDIO.US is an Experiment: Mix.B, Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art, London From This Time - Unchained, curated by Ione & Mann, London Rogue Objects, Bloomsbury Festival, University College London, London Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Unit 3 Projects, London Marching Through the Fields, Warbling Collective, London COUPLES, The Hand, Brooklyn NY SURGE: the East Wing Biennial, Courtauld Institute, London RCA Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London Living Room, Safehouse 1 & 2, London Rubber-chew // Clink, adieu, Unit 1 Gallery, London An Audience of Echoes, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, London Plants People Pots [an invitation], Pinch Project Space, London

2017

Beyond Borders, Rebelle Gallery, Hamburg RCA WIP Show, London

2016

The Abstraction of Continents / The Continent of Abstraction, Lychee One Gallery, London

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Awards: 2020 Vlieseline Fine Art Textiles Award, short-listed 2016 Fulbright UK Open Award, short-listed 2015 Vermont Studio Center, Artist Grant 2015 Art of the Northeast Exhibition, Andy and Marsha Glazer Painting Award 2015, 2014 Hunter College, Kossak Painting Fellowship 2014 Yale University, Ellen Battel Stoeckel Painting Fellowship 2010, 2009 NYFA, Strategic Opportunities Stipend Residencies: 2021 2017 2016 2015 2014

Villa Lena, Tuscany Italy (invited as Creative Collaborator) – forthcoming RUD AIR, Laxarby Sweden Vermont Studio Center, Johnson VT Arteles Creative Center, Haukivarji Finland Yale University Norfolk Summer Residency, Norfolk CT

Teaching Experience/ Workshops: 2019 2018

Fruits of Origin: Thinking and Talking Beyond Embroidery, AMP Gallery, London Sewing Circle: Stitching and the Fabric of Conversation (workshop), UCL Art Gallery, London Slade School of Fine Art (visiting tutor), UCL, London

Press/ Publications: 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2019

2019 2018 2018 2017 2016 2016

ArtFictions Interview Embroidery Magazine Interview Dovetail Magazine Festival of Quilts Magazine, 2020 Limited Edition ArtMaze Mag, Summer Issue 18 Frieze Magazine Vogue UK FAD Magazine London Live Sixth Finch Present and Correct blog Young Space Interview Artisster Saatchi online, One to watch New American Paintings, Northeast #122 45

Published in September 2020 by Candida Stevens Gallery on the occasion of an exhibition featuring the work of Cecila Charlton.

Catalogue © Candida Stevens Gallery Images © the Artist Text © Candida Stevens All rights reserved Photography © Dan Stevens and installations by Cecilia Charlton

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