Statement
Charlie materially explores boundaries through sculptural installations and performative interventions, exaggerating objects to disrupt social order. Through the playful poetics of material, she critiques the rationalism, alienation and aesthetics of consumer culture with environmental consciousness. She chooses commodities based on cleanliness to invert purpose, objects of desire to accentuate form and discarded items to rebuild status, moving from toilet rolls to shiny beads and leftover newspapers. Through experimental hands on play with these everyday things, a transformation occurs; functional basics turn into uncertain arrangements, worlds and beings; a becoming of the ‘Other’. Often tangled with architecture, material cumulation has a strong sensory presence which invites a non-digital bodily engagement. These experiences are transient with some work self-destructing - an act of flow resisting fixity. Pulse and rhythm encompass aspects of the making process while other works are freely improvised in multiple directions as systems evolve or collapse in abject mess. Dark humour is used in Charlie's pursuit to question existential categories - the natural and man-made, internal and external, living and dying - and to explore alternate structures of organised chaos.
Biography
Charlie Barlow (b. Peterborough, UK) is an artist working in sculpture and performance, living and working in Peterborough. She received an MA in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2018, where she was the recipient of the Clare Winsten Memorial Award (2017). Recent exhibitions include Inside Job, Tate Modern, London (2022), SPILL Festival of Performance (2021), Love Light Festival, Norwich (2020), The Tortoise will Reverse Itself, Academy for Visual Arts, Hong Kong (2018) and Platform 1, Bloomsbury Theatre, London (2018). She has undertaken residencies with Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (2014), Dyad Creative, Norwich (2017) and Kaitak Centre, AVA, HKBU, Hong Kong (2018).
Education
2020-2021 PGCE + QTS - University of Hull / The Deepings SCITT, Peterborough
2016-2018 MA Fine Art - Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London
2011-2014 BA (Hons) Fine Art - Norwich University of the Arts, Norwich
Residencies / Awards
2023 Artist in Residence, stichting NAC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2021 Metal Mentoring Programme, Metal Culture UK, Remote
2021 Spill Open Selection, The Pacitti Company, Ipswich
2021 Art//Tech//Play Practice Days, Collusion, Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich
2020 a-n Bursary, a-n The Artists Information Company, Remote
2018 Artist in Residence, Kaitak Centre, Academy for Visual Arts, HKBU, Hong Kong
2017 Clare Winsten Memorial Award, Slade School of Fine Art, London
2017 Artist in Residence, DYAD Creative, Norwich
2016 Slade Bursary, Slade School of Fine Art, London
2015 Arts Internship, Vivacity, Peterborough
2014 Leverhulme Arts Scholarship, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge
Selected Exhibitions
Solo / 3 Person
2023 Now and Yesterday - Metal Culture, Peterborough
2018 The Tortoise Will Reverse Itself - Academy for Visual Arts, HKBU, Hong Kong
2017 Touch to Voice - Dove Street Studios, Norwich
2016 Wash Your Dirty Linen In Public - Peterborough City Gallery
Group
2023 Norwich Life - Norwich Printing Museum at Anteros Art Foundation, Norwich
Colour/Print/Poetry - Slade Research Centre, UCL, London (online)
2022 Touch Me Baby - Bad Art, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, London
Colour/Pigment/Poetry - Slade Research Centre, UCL, London (online)
Inside Job, Tate Modern, London
2021 Spill Festival of Performance, Ipswich
Hot Air - Manor Place Warehouse, London
Colour/Collage/Poetry - Slade Research Centre, UCL, London (online)
2020 Love Light Festival - Norwich (commission)
2019 Just Putting It Out There - Harts Lane Studios, London
TSB - Tate Modern, London
All Work and All Play - Air Gallery, Altrincham
The Clunker - Playhouse Bar, Norfolk and Norwich Festival, Norwich
The Nomenclature of Colours - Slade Research Centre, UCL, London
2018 Inside Job - Tate Modern, London
Platform 1 - Bloomsbury Theatre, London
2017 The Clunker - Playhouse Bar / Anteros Arts Foundation, Norwich
Authentic Tongues - Bloomsbury Theatre, London
MEMEMEME - Crypt Gallery, London
2016 Live Art - Wymondham, Norfolk
BAS8 Takeover - NUA, Norwich
In Loving Memory - Geddes Gallery, London
Scratch Performances - Anteros Arts Foundation, Norwich
2015 Peterborough Arts Festival - Peterborough (commission)
Shades of Yellow - Embassy Tea Gallery, London
Secret Circus - The Key Theatre, Peterborough (commission)
2014 LAS Public Presentation - Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire
Art Car Boot Fair - Redwell Brewery, Norwich
In Loving Memory - Stew Gallery, Norwich
Process - Stew Gallery, Norwich
Fourteen - The Fabric Warehouse, Norwich
2013 NUA - Firstsite, Essex
Aience - NUA, Norwich
No Working Title - Tate Modern, London
Text
2018 Urban Textures: Reassembling the Relegated
2017 A Tour of The Monuments of Stephenson Street
2014 Material Parasites: Ooze as Sustenance
Press
2021 Spill Festival Interview, BBC Radio Suffolk, 29 Oct, Ipswich
2020 Isovist, An Interview by James Milner, 02 Dec, London
2020 Love Light Festival Interview, BBC Radio Norfolk, 14 Feb, Norwich
2017 Slade Research Weeks, Research on the Body, Colour & Sound, The Slade Research Centre, p.10-11, London
2016 Slade Research Weeks, Research on the Space, Collaboration, Body & Voice, The Slade Research Centre, p.15-17, London
2016 Wash Your Dirty Linen In Public Review, Alistair Gentry, 25 March, Peterborough
Teaching / Workshops
2023 Secondary & Primary Art Teacher - Marshfield's Secondary School, Peterborough
2022 Secondary Art Teacher - Spalding High School, Spalding
2021 Secondary Art Teacher - Ken Stimpson Community School, Peterborough
2018 Visiting Lecturer - Norwich University of the Arts, Norwich
2017 Workshop Leader - Bath Spa University, Bath
Charlie materially explores boundaries through sculptural installations and performative interventions, exaggerating objects to disrupt social order. Through the playful poetics of material, she critiques the rationalism, alienation and aesthetics of consumer culture with environmental consciousness. She chooses commodities based on cleanliness to invert purpose, objects of desire to accentuate form and discarded items to rebuild status, moving from toilet rolls to shiny beads and leftover newspapers. Through experimental hands on play with these everyday things, a transformation occurs; functional basics turn into uncertain arrangements, worlds and beings; a becoming of the ‘Other’. Often tangled with architecture, material cumulation has a strong sensory presence which invites a non-digital bodily engagement. These experiences are transient with some work self-destructing - an act of flow resisting fixity. Pulse and rhythm encompass aspects of the making process while other works are freely improvised in multiple directions as systems evolve or collapse in abject mess. Dark humour is used in Charlie's pursuit to question existential categories - the natural and man-made, internal and external, living and dying - and to explore alternate structures of organised chaos.
Biography
Charlie Barlow (b. Peterborough, UK) is an artist working in sculpture and performance, living and working in Peterborough. She received an MA in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2018, where she was the recipient of the Clare Winsten Memorial Award (2017). Recent exhibitions include Inside Job, Tate Modern, London (2022), SPILL Festival of Performance (2021), Love Light Festival, Norwich (2020), The Tortoise will Reverse Itself, Academy for Visual Arts, Hong Kong (2018) and Platform 1, Bloomsbury Theatre, London (2018). She has undertaken residencies with Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (2014), Dyad Creative, Norwich (2017) and Kaitak Centre, AVA, HKBU, Hong Kong (2018).
Education
2020-2021 PGCE + QTS - University of Hull / The Deepings SCITT, Peterborough
2016-2018 MA Fine Art - Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London
2011-2014 BA (Hons) Fine Art - Norwich University of the Arts, Norwich
Residencies / Awards
2023 Artist in Residence, stichting NAC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2021 Metal Mentoring Programme, Metal Culture UK, Remote
2021 Spill Open Selection, The Pacitti Company, Ipswich
2021 Art//Tech//Play Practice Days, Collusion, Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich
2020 a-n Bursary, a-n The Artists Information Company, Remote
2018 Artist in Residence, Kaitak Centre, Academy for Visual Arts, HKBU, Hong Kong
2017 Clare Winsten Memorial Award, Slade School of Fine Art, London
2017 Artist in Residence, DYAD Creative, Norwich
2016 Slade Bursary, Slade School of Fine Art, London
2015 Arts Internship, Vivacity, Peterborough
2014 Leverhulme Arts Scholarship, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge
Selected Exhibitions
Solo / 3 Person
2023 Now and Yesterday - Metal Culture, Peterborough
2018 The Tortoise Will Reverse Itself - Academy for Visual Arts, HKBU, Hong Kong
2017 Touch to Voice - Dove Street Studios, Norwich
2016 Wash Your Dirty Linen In Public - Peterborough City Gallery
Group
2023 Norwich Life - Norwich Printing Museum at Anteros Art Foundation, Norwich
Colour/Print/Poetry - Slade Research Centre, UCL, London (online)
2022 Touch Me Baby - Bad Art, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, London
Colour/Pigment/Poetry - Slade Research Centre, UCL, London (online)
Inside Job, Tate Modern, London
2021 Spill Festival of Performance, Ipswich
Hot Air - Manor Place Warehouse, London
Colour/Collage/Poetry - Slade Research Centre, UCL, London (online)
2020 Love Light Festival - Norwich (commission)
2019 Just Putting It Out There - Harts Lane Studios, London
TSB - Tate Modern, London
All Work and All Play - Air Gallery, Altrincham
The Clunker - Playhouse Bar, Norfolk and Norwich Festival, Norwich
The Nomenclature of Colours - Slade Research Centre, UCL, London
2018 Inside Job - Tate Modern, London
Platform 1 - Bloomsbury Theatre, London
2017 The Clunker - Playhouse Bar / Anteros Arts Foundation, Norwich
Authentic Tongues - Bloomsbury Theatre, London
MEMEMEME - Crypt Gallery, London
2016 Live Art - Wymondham, Norfolk
BAS8 Takeover - NUA, Norwich
In Loving Memory - Geddes Gallery, London
Scratch Performances - Anteros Arts Foundation, Norwich
2015 Peterborough Arts Festival - Peterborough (commission)
Shades of Yellow - Embassy Tea Gallery, London
Secret Circus - The Key Theatre, Peterborough (commission)
2014 LAS Public Presentation - Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire
Art Car Boot Fair - Redwell Brewery, Norwich
In Loving Memory - Stew Gallery, Norwich
Process - Stew Gallery, Norwich
Fourteen - The Fabric Warehouse, Norwich
2013 NUA - Firstsite, Essex
Aience - NUA, Norwich
No Working Title - Tate Modern, London
Text
2018 Urban Textures: Reassembling the Relegated
2017 A Tour of The Monuments of Stephenson Street
2014 Material Parasites: Ooze as Sustenance
Press
2021 Spill Festival Interview, BBC Radio Suffolk, 29 Oct, Ipswich
2020 Isovist, An Interview by James Milner, 02 Dec, London
2020 Love Light Festival Interview, BBC Radio Norfolk, 14 Feb, Norwich
2017 Slade Research Weeks, Research on the Body, Colour & Sound, The Slade Research Centre, p.10-11, London
2016 Slade Research Weeks, Research on the Space, Collaboration, Body & Voice, The Slade Research Centre, p.15-17, London
2016 Wash Your Dirty Linen In Public Review, Alistair Gentry, 25 March, Peterborough
Teaching / Workshops
2023 Secondary & Primary Art Teacher - Marshfield's Secondary School, Peterborough
2022 Secondary Art Teacher - Spalding High School, Spalding
2021 Secondary Art Teacher - Ken Stimpson Community School, Peterborough
2018 Visiting Lecturer - Norwich University of the Arts, Norwich
2017 Workshop Leader - Bath Spa University, Bath