Charlotte Humpston - Fibre Artist

Recently Fibre Art has been accepted within the international practice of Fine Art which has for me been an exciting change - over the last 5 years I have been to exhibitions in London, New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Paris - and also this years Venice Biennale (and the 5 preceding it) - where more and more artists who concentrated on fibre and fabrics have been recognised by the Art World. A key element of this acceptance began when curators and critics realised that these materials worked alongside a conceptual base - but also these materials express something about the human condition that other materials cannot.. So when I left Central St Martins in 1981, I co-founded Red Shift Theatre Company, which was later to be fully funded by ACE and we were awarded three Edinburgh Fringe First Awards over time. This early period in my artistic development was exciting due to my experimenting with textiles and fabrics - and critically I also formed my political allegiances and emotional connections that later reveal themselves in my art.
The process of drawing & painting to create the set and costumes for a play like Dostoevsky’s The Double for instance, would many years later influence my installations with refugees, as well as in a series of 3D artworks titled  Exodus. I sourced clothes from charity shops and fashioned them into a large cloak, found re-cycled fabric to create a sail, to emphasise the hope necessary for people to risk their lives to cross sea borders. I have spent years learning processes from casting the human body, to weaving, painting, sculpting in textile (a series of life-size figures and miniature Pods) and then visualising concepts in installation form and utilising mixed media to achieve the final piece. I have worked with fellow artists creating work (Outside:Inside, an hour long performance with musicians, singers and two current Academicians) - and creating a variety of elements for installations in 10 Cathedrals in the UK China, Italy Sweden, and the USA). One of my new works Re:Formation will appear in several churches in Somerset in 2025, a UK Cathedral in 2026 and a US Cathedral in 2027. 
Re:Formation involves wrapping the columns of the cathedrals in gold survival blankets, which reflects my practice of wrapping significant objects or places, (such as an orchard in Somerset). My choice of materials and how they are sourced reflects my belief that the audience, when made aware of my choices, can very quickly decipher where my art is rooted - as an artist's response to world events.
Upcoming Solo Exhibitions - UK and Abroad
2027 Grace Cathedral, Re: Formation Wrapped Columns, large Version
2026 Gloucester Cathedral, Re: Formation, large Version
2025 St John's Glastonbury, Re: Formation, small version
Solo Exhibitions - UK
2024 - Solo Exhibition, Orchard Studios, SAW event, September
2023 - Solo exhibition, Heritage Courtyard Gallery Somerset
2023 - Solo Somerset Open Studios - fibre art & paintings.
2022 - Somerset Open Studios - fibre art & paintings
2021- Somerset Open Studios - fibre art & paintings
2020 -Somerset Open Studios - fibre art & paintings
2019 - Alfred Gillett Trust Somerset, 'Cradlebridge' Installation on the subject of grief - for International Woman's Day.
2018 - Red Brick Building Gallery Solo show Installation of 'Pods'
2017 - Alfred Gillett Trust Somerset Site specific installation ‘Golden Bough’ (with screening of to 'Stand and Stare')
2014 - Solo Exhibition at Centre Space, Bristol. Seven pieces of Fibre Art & Video/Textile installations- 'Moving Paintings'
​Group Exhibitions
2024  Group show SMART Somerset
2022 Venice, (with Terry Flaxton RWA, Lucy Williams)
2021 ACE arts Somerton, 'Fifty Bees': ACE Group show
2019 - ‘Reformation’ Exhibition  at Bishop’s Palace, Wells. Installation ‘Golden Exodus’ Fibre Sculptures
​2019 ACE  Somerton Dove Arts Printmakers & Calligraphy, Circle of Trees, Artists Books, Curated by Bron Bradshaw RWA
​​2019  'Hanging by a Thread', Heritage Courtyard Wells
2018 Bath Reclamation -  Moving Paintings textile pieces in an exhibition with Terry Flaxton RWA
2018 Inside:Outside with Bron Bradshaw RWA, Terry Flaxton RWA, Emily Birridge Cellist (and 3 singers) see Books, Scrolls, Calligraphy, Performance for description
​2018 Heritage Courtyard Wells
2017 Heritage Courtyard Gallery Installation Fibre Sculptures  ‘Pods’​
​2016 Heritage Courtyard Gallery, ‘Exodus’ Fibre Art installation
2011 Somerset Arts Exhibition of paintings & textile artwork.
2010 Bristol 204 Imaginists
​2008, Imaginists, Venice
2011 Somerset Arts Exhibition of paintings & textile artwork.
2010 Bristol 204 Imaginists
​2008, Imaginists, Venice
For 2008 - 2016 see Collaborative Exhibitions which included working in the USA, China, Italy, Sweden, Malta & the UK
​Residencies
2016 Brisons Veor Residential Artist Studio, Cape Cornwall
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Awards
2019 ACE Award - Dove Arts commission for the Ogham Book 
​2011 Heritage Lottery Grant £38,000 for ‘Portraits of Somerset Working People’ 4 Exhibitions in Somerset -  and an experimental art documentary
1990 BAFTA nomination for 'Star Test'
1989 Edinburgh Fringe First Awards 'Frida and Diego'
1988 Edinburgh Fringe First Award 'Le Misanthrope'
1987 Edinburgh Fringe First Award 'The Duchess of Malfi'
Picture
Wrapping the orchard in Somerset
Collaborative Exhibitions
​My work in 2018 on Outside:Inside - a collaboration with other artists including Bronwen Bradshaw RWA, Lucy Williams, Steve Marshall, Emily Burridge & Terry Flaxton RWA, (which itself was a reformation of "The Imaginists")  included design and fabrication of a variety of elements for Outside:Inside and of creating an overall formulation and environment for the ideas of this group of artists, musicians and singers within a one hour format - including my creating many Ogham wall hangings for the live performance, pre-recorded video and video’s that were interacted with by the artists and musicians.

The Imaginists were formed in 2008 when we obtained a grant for £3200 to create a moving image work called Un Tempo Una Volta. The group included Bronwen Bradshaw RWA and Lucietta Williams our Welsh Venetian contact. With the grant money we hired cameras, boat and a variety of different equipment to each make a piece of work. This also paid for flights, accommodation and food and the location and projector for the final exhibition of the 'A portrait of the Working People of Cannaregio' and each of our artworks in Cannaregio with that community (and two subsequent exhibitions).

2019 Outside:Inside, an hour long performance with musicians, singers and two Academicians (Flaxton, Bradshaw)
2010, Imaginists Bristol at the 204 Gallery
2009, Imaginists, Phoenix in Glastonbury, Somerset 2009 and 
2008, Imaginists, Venice, Scarabocchio Graphic Studio, Cannaregio, Ponte degli Ormensini, Venice, Jewish Quarter
2005 An Army of Occupying Artists take over: The Hotel. In 2005, I and several other core artists organised the benevolent 'invasion' of a contemporary hotel. For one weekend in total 22 artist took over every room, bathroom, corridor and bar of the Ashley Court Hotel in Bristol. On that weekend, by word of mouth only, 2000 people came across two days..
2010 to 2017 Installs of In Other People's Skins OPS and the Intersection of Dreams, which I designed for Terry Flaxton: USA New York Cathedral -(St John the Design)  5 separate installs, Vasteras Cathedral, Sweden, Fabbrica del Vapore Milan, Italy, Malta, Valetta Contemporary Arts Centre, Xi'an China, Academy of Fine Art + 7 UK Cathedrals, as well as Bath Abbey & Southwell Minster 
Screenings of Moving Image Art Work
To Stand and Stare: A Somerset Landscape is a piece of collaborative work that went through a 3 year edit period where Terry Flaxton and I occasionally screened the work to refine the online version - you can now see the link above in blue.
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​2019 - Screened at Echo Park Film Centre, in Los Angeles
2018 - Screened at The Watershed, Bristol  
2017 - Screened in Somerset, Alfred Gillett Trust.