Charmaine Watkiss
The work of Charmaine Watkiss makes reference to what she terms as “memory stories”; narratives that are created from her research related to the African Caribbean diaspora, which are then mapped onto female figures. Watkiss draws herself as a starting point and conduit to relay those stories that speak about a collective experience, starting with a theme then allowing intuition and a dialogue with the work to take over. Her practice addresses themes including, ritual, tradition, ancestry, mythology and cosmology. Recently, Watkiss has shifted her gaze towards the natural world, investigating the herbal healing traditions of Caribbean women, especially those of her mother’s generation, connecting those traditions through colonisation and back to their roots in Africa.
Charmaine Watkiss lives and works in London. She holds a MA in Drawing, from UAL Wimbledon College of Art (2018). Recent exhibitions include The Company She Keeps, Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos, Nigeria (2022); Drawing attention: emerging British artists, The British Museum, London (2022); Womxn Of Colour Art Award 2020-2021 Exhibition: Altitude, 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, London (2022); The Seed Keepers, Tiwani Contemporary, London (2021); RA Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2021); To the Edge of Time, KU Leuven Libraries, Belgium (2021); Breakfast Under The Tree, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate (2021); Me, Myself and I, Collyer Bristow Gallery (2020); Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize (2019), Wimbledon College of Art MA Degree Show (2018); Against Static (Curated by Tania Kovats), Wimbledon Space (2018).
Biography courtesy of Tiwani Contemporary.