Charlotte Riley-Webb – Biography
Armed with strong cultural values instilled in her by her parents and grandparents who had lived in the south, Charlotte acquired the desire to document and share that culture through art at an early age. Her career was built on a good basic educational foundation which she obtained in the public school system of Cleveland, Ohio and earned her B.F.A. degree from The Cleveland Institute of Art. She began her M.F.A. at Georgia State University, screen printing at The Atlanta College of Art, mono-printing and abstract art at Tougaloo College, MS. Charlotte visually documented the essence of her culture in her three year traveling exhibition, “From Stories of My America”. She also used it as a springboard for The High Museum workshop where she was asked to compare her work to that of Jacob Lawrence. Premiering at Atlanta’s Hammonds House, the Stories exhibition has shown in nine different museums and fine art galleries, traveling to the Historic Beach Institute in Savannah, The Rosa Parks Museum, in Montgomery and The Penn Center, at St. Helena Island among them. “Gullah Rhythms”, a painting from the tour, was also displayed as a part of the Kente’ exhibition at The Marco Carlos Museum in Atlanta.
Over the years her venues extended across the country and beyond the states to include Surinam, South America and Anguilla, British West Indies. Webb’s work is included in numerous, private, business and corporate collections. The most recent public works installations were Faces and Phases of Fulton , a painting installed in the Fulton County Public Service office in Atlanta and the installation of her collaborative new medium, “sculpted paintings” which she creates with her sculptor husband, Lucious. The couple installed an outdoor public work in the concert district of downtown Hampton, VA for which they were awarded The Hampton Arts Commission Award of Excellence and their piece, “Sounds of Perpetual Spring”, was voted as the city’s People’s Choice Purchase Award for their permanent collection.
Among her many awards and accomplishments, Charlotte has been the recipient of several Georgia Council and Bureau of Cultural Affairs grants which she used primarily to fund her 13 year volunteer senior citizen art classes and installation of an art gallery for the work. Charlotte was one of 14 artists nationally to receive the Absolut Vodka’s Heritage Award resulting in the commission and six city national tours Contemporary realistic with an abstract flair, Charlotte’s style easily translated into the illustrations for two children’s books Rent Party Jazz and Sweet Potato Pie, for New York publisher, Lee and Low. She has also recently completed the paintings for Entrance Place of Wonders, a third children’s book based on poems from the Harlem Renaissance for publisher, Harry Abrams Books.
An evolution of study, growth and expansion has led Charlotte to her new and present genre. She began working in “abstract art” with stellar abstract artist and 2004 Vander zee award winner, Moe Brooker of Philadelphia a few years ago and again in “encaustic” the summer of 2004. She also learned John T. Scott’s, of New Orleans, hand-made wax paper printing process after studying with him in 2003. These opportunities aided her in finding her own “abstract niche” and helped propel the career which she had been hinging on for many years even in her figurative works. Her abstract accomplishments were recently acknowledged with her “Best of Show Award” in the AAFTA Holiday Exhibition 2004, and “New Power Generation 2005″ National Exhibition, at the Hampton Museum in Virginia where she was awarded the John T. Biggers’ Award for her pastel work “Integrating Life”. Charlotte also received the first place award for works on paper at the 2005 Southern Roots Exhibit at the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham; AL. Recently voted into the oldest most prestigious organization of women artists, The National Association of Women Artists, NY. She has received a September 2005 fellowship to The Hambidge Art Center and the Women’s Studio Workshop in New York in January 2006 where Charlotte looks forward to translating the abstract images into silkscreen prints. Kandinsky says that “Abstract art places a new world, which on the surface has nothing to do with “reality”, next to the “real” world. Deeper down, it is subject to the common laws of the ‘cosmic world.’ And so a “new world of art” is juxtaposed to the “world of nature.” Charlotte believes that colors and shapes have their own rhythm, “weight” or importance in a painting. She has woven these shapes and colors into compositions which she calls “Earth Tunes”, which she feels are as valid, and have as much emotional power as music. Her exhibition, “Transcendence of Earth Tunes”, will debut her abstract work in a one person exhibition at the Apex Museum during the NBAF in Atlanta, summer 2005.
For the best art viewing experience, including priced works for sale, see Charlotte Riley-Webb’s work in the main gallery
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