Charlotte Fleming
I draw almost every day, using a dip pen and ink on both paper and canvas, often on a large scale with some pieces as big as 2 metres. The backgrounds are dark and swampy with pools of white ink and floating gold pigments with the lines making long threads across the surface.
It seems to me that I have been under the sea in my imagination for a long time and jellyfish appear in my work again and again. These jellyfish have come to represent my emotions and feelings. They are alone in the deep, dark, vast seas and seem to represent something to me about how we are in our world too. They drift onto the canvas out of the dark intricate and delicate, like lace. In my work, they aren’t anatomically correct, I don’t research them, they swim through my imagination where they float out of the gloom, beautiful and ethereal in white ink.
While I have been on this underwater journey my work has also evolved. I have introduced textures using dry pigments and thick layers of ink that crack, and chemical reactions between inks and metallic pigments. I draw over the cracks and create a fragile, fractured feel which I am looking to push further. I am also working in oils where I’m exploring sea urchins, again on a large scale. These paintings are more abstract, they have the impression of looking through the sea to the floor. I use the richness of colour in the oil paint to contrast with creamy white shells of heart urchins and broken oyster shells. I am very much at the beginning of these ideas and I’m really excited to see where they lead and it feels like a continuous conversation.
My working life is immersed in who I am as artist. I work from two locations. The first being my shop Fleming & Sell in Topsham, where I have a studio and sell my work. I am open 5 days a week and the studio is also open for anyone who wants to see work being created. Working in this way has its challenges but it also wonderful as I get feedback from my clients and I also get to talk about art everyday too. I absolutely love my shop and I sell on average 150 original paintings a year, so I’m constantly busy. I also have a full commission book which I’m very grateful for!
The second place I work from is more solitary and is my painting studio. Built in a garden in rural Devon, Black studio is where I work on paintings and developing ideas away from the distraction of working in the middle of a busy high street. I shall be opening this studio once a year for Devon Open Studios. Between these two places I am constantly working, practicing and developing my skills and knowledge and I’m excited to see where I can take it.