Artist Statement/Biography
Atlanta Artist Charlotte Riley-Webb earned her B.F.A. degree from The Cleveland Institute of Art. She began her Master’s Degree at Georgia State University, and has continued her education of exploring new mediums through numerous workshops and classes throughout the years. She documented the essence of her culture in her three year traveling painting exhibition, “From Stories of My America”, which debuted at the Hammonds House Museum in Atlanta and exhibited in seven different museums and fine art galleries throughout the south. Over the years her venues extended across the country and beyond the states to include Newcastle, England; Surinam, South America and a solo exhibition in Anguilla, British West Indies. Webb’s work is included in numerous, private, museum and corporate collections. Her Public Art works installations include, the Fulton County Public Service Building in Atlanta and the installations of she and her husband’s collaborative medium, “sculpted paintings”, in downtown Hampton, Virginia for which they were awarded “The Hampton Arts Commission Award of Excellence”, and was voted as the People’s Choice Purchase Award for their permanent collection. Most recently, sculpted painting, “Arts Alive”, was commissioned for the new Inter City Row Cultural Arts Center in Shreveport, LA. Charlotte’s rhythmic style and bright palette, easily translated into the illustrations for seven children’s books. And as one of twelve contributing visual artists to book, “Our Children Can Soar”, She received a 2010 NAACP Image Award. Charlotte proclaims that “transitioning into abstract art after so many years as a representational artist, with an abstract flair, truly took an act of faith. While challenging, it has proven to be extremely rewarding and fulfilling.”
As an abstract artist she has received several national first place awards; was inducted into NAWA, New York and Florida chapters; received a Pollack-Krasner Foundation Award and The John T. Bigger’s Award in two triennial competitions from the Hampton Museum in Virginia. She has received three artist residencies at the Hambidge Arts Center, a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Arts Center and was honored with a Distinguished Artist Residency Fellowship, spending the month of October 2014 working at Vytlacil (VYT), in Sparkill, NY. She most recently received a September 2015 residency fellowship for the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. (VCCA) There she began a series of large pastels entitled Blue Lotus. Charlotte was one of the two finalists representing the USA southern region at Art Basel in Miami in 2011. Her work was featured on the February 2012 poster and in the Wall Street Journal magazine for the Harlem, NY Fine Art Show and in three different articles of the International Review of African American Artists, Hampton, VA. Collectively, three of her painting series, “Stories of My America, Earth Tunes and Still Running Lines Through My Head”, comprised “No Crystal Stair” which debuted at the Hammonds House Museum in a solo forty-year retrospective exhibition of her work in 2011. It went from there to the NAAHBCU Museum in Montgomery and Bessie Smith Museum in Chattanooga. “No Crystal Stair is the culmination of my journey thus far; a narrative and colorful kaleidoscope of opinions and experiences of my amazing, creative journey.”
As one of fifteen artists selected to present a work for the new museum honoring the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Riders in Montgomery, AL, she created “Solidarity in Song”. She was also selected as an exhibitor in the 2013 WAP, (Working Artist Project) Georgia Artist Exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, (MOCA) in Atlanta as well as in “Imagining”, the permanent exhibition of female artists at the Hammonds House Museum. “Blood Rhythms, Strange Fruit”, her traveling exhibition chronicling the history of Black America mirrored through the works of songstress Nina Simone, poets Ntozake Shange, Maya Angelou, and Tzynya Pinchback, debuted at the Tubman Museum in Macon, GA then the Bessie Museum in Chattanooga and in 2015, Atlanta’s Southwest Arts Center. Webb was invited to participate in “The Matter of Water” exhibition primarily made up of New York NCA artists, at The Wilmer Jennings New York Art Gallery in October 2015. She is currently represented by Zucot Gallery in Castleberry Hills, Atlanta.Whatever genre or theme Charlotte Riley-Webb chooses, her bold, colorful palette and rhythmic style remains the signature of her art and spirit. For more information and images of her work please visit www.charlotterileywebb.com