CHARLOTTE EVANS
Kiss the Joy that Flies
On the shelf of Charlotte Evans’s studio, some 3,500 thousand miles away from London in Toronto, Canada, is a catalogue of paintings from the National Gallery’s collection. In this book are countless images that connect the artist with her childhood - a childhood that was split between London and rural Tuscany. In Evans’s latest exhibition with Candida Stevens Gallery, ‘Kiss the Joy that Flies’, it is the deep-rooted and yet almost entirely subconscious influence of this upbringing that permeates her paintings.
The tenderly painted Cradle, for example, is imbued with references to the Italian Renaissance. Reminiscent of the National Gallery’s ‘The Baptism of Christ’ by Piero della Francesca (c1437), two figures appear, arms around each other, beneath the arch of a full moon. The woman on the right carefully holds a small bird and, like many Renaissance works depicting the Madonna and Child, the figures appear burdened with responsibility as they care for this little creature. In Evans’s use of ultramarine (a pigment that was reserved for the Virgin Mary’s robes) and inclusion of strawberries (a symbol of fertility) on the figure's jacket, we see the lasting imprint of the art of this period on the artist's practice.
It is not just the past that inspires Evans, however. She and her wife share three children, a daughter and twin sons, whose presence can be felt throughout her work. Hope is the thing with feathers, for example, began as one panel based on an Indian miniature entitled ‘Prince with a falcon’ (c1600) but felt unresolved until the artist decided to add a second to the right. In doing so, it evolved into a work that speaks of the relationship between Evans and her daughter, seen here as the bird on the left, and her two sons, seen to the right.
In Bird Boy, a solitary figure wrapped in a colourful, feathered cape stands at the edge of the water beneath the cool glow of a rising sun. Arms spread in preparation for flight, he looks towards the audience in a way that seems both defiant and afraid. Perhaps influenced by Evans’s own experience of being a parent, it is as if the audience is being asked to play the role of Icarus’s father, Daedalus, who warned his son of the dangers of flying too close to the sun but was ultimately powerless to stop him from making his own mistakes.
Drawing inspiration from across the arts, Evans’s life has been punctuated with experiences that have captured her imagination entirely - moments of pure beauty that return to her time and again whilst painting. Witnessing Mark Morris’s ‘L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato’, for example, has had a profound effect. A masterpiece of twentieth century choreography set to Handel’s baroque interpretation of John Milton’s poetry, it is a captivating display of colour and movement in which dancers weave in and out of each other, on and off the wings of the stage. This element of spectatorship is something that appeals strongly to Evans and is mirrored in her use of foliage and tree trunks that frame her works and provide the set through which her characters emerge.
In ‘Kiss the Joy that Flies’, we see the way in which Charlotte Evans’s identity as an artist shapes her experience of life and how she sees the world. There are stories, pieces of music and works of art seen decades ago that continue to exist vividly in her imagination and inspire her as she paints. From the Venetian ironwork pattern that finds its way onto a figure's cape in Hope is the thing with feathers to the inclusion of a pointed red shoe borrowed from The National Gallery's ‘Wilton Diptych’ (c1395) in Cradle, Evans absorbs and stores details that others might not notice. It is this rich tapestry of artistic influence that echoes so strikingly through her work.
Essay by Isabella Joughin
Hope is the thing with feathers, 2023
Oil on canvas
Beautiful strangers, 2022
CHARLOTTE EVANS
b. 1981, London, UK
Lives and works in Toronto, Canada
EDUCA TION
2003 BA (Hons) Fine Art, Byam Shaw School of Art, London, UK
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2014 Five Points Gallery, Torrington, CT, USA ‘Charlotte Evans’
2013 Home Gallery, London, UK ‘paper works’
2012 Home Gallery, London, UK ‘paper works’
2012 Wayfarers, Brooklyn, NY, USA ‘Dreams, and Other Places’
2011 The Purple Crayon, Hastings-On-Hudson, NY, USA ‘Charlotte Evans’
2010 Home Gallery, London, UK ‘paper works’
2005 Bush Bar, London, UK ‘Trees’
2005 Canvas Gallery, Brighton, UK ‘Charlotte Evans’
2003 Targetfollow Group, Wembley Point, London, UK ‘Swallows and Amazon’
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Candida Stevens Gallery at Cromwell Place, London, place - displace.
2018 Candida Stevens Gallery, UK ‘Present Day, Supporting Living Artists’
2017 Candida Stevens Gallery, UK ‘December’
2017 Candida Stevens Gallery, UK ‘Spring- Looking at the New’
2016 First Street Gallery, NY, NY, USA, ‘Artists Invite Artists’
2015 Wayfarers, Brooklyn, NY, USA ‘Family Album’
2015 3Walls, Brooklyn, USA ‘two person show’
2015 Madelyn Jordan Fine Art, Scarsdale, NY, USA ‘I am What I am Not Yet’
2015 Sara Nightingale Gallery, Hamptons, NY, USA ‘Reinventing the Helm’
2015 Cynthia Corbett Gallery, London, UK ‘Young Masters- Focus on Painting’
2014 Wayfarers, Brooklyn, NY, USA ‘Almanac’
2014 The Bushwick Gallery Association, Brooklyn, NY, USA ‘Philae Bounced’
2014 Spacewomb Gallery, NY, NY, USA ‘Dreamcatcher’
2014 Concepto Hudson, Husdon, NY, USA ‘Vantage Point’
2014 The Curator Gallery, NY, NY, USA ‘Away We Go: Emerging Brooklyn Artists’
2014 Gallery Orange Contemporary, New Orleans, USA
2014 Wayfarers, Brooklyn, NY, USA ‘ashen branches, vibrant keysCharlotte Evans and CHIOZZA’ 2013 Da Wang Cultural Highland, Shenzhen, China, Feng Ling Shan Shui International Art Exhibition 2013
3Walls, Brooklyn, NY, USA ‘two artists’
2012 east2collective, Houston, TX, USA ‘5by5by5’
2012 Wayfarers, Brooklyn, NY, USA ‘I Choo-Choo-Choose You’
2011 Wayfarers, Brooklyn, NY, USA ‘For’
2008 Will’s Art Warehouse, London, UK ‘Greatest Hits- our bestselling artists’
2007 Will’s Art Warehouse, London, UK
2006 Art for Art’s Sake’, The Ground Floor Group, London, UK
2006 Will’s Art Warehouse, London, UK
2006 The Picture House Harrogate, Harrogate, UK
2005 Heal’s, London, UK
2005 Will’s Art Warehouse, London, UK ‘Nature’
2004 QUODart, Brighton, UK
2004 Will’s Art Warehouse, London, UK ‘Emerging’
2003 John Adams Fine Art, London, UK
Published in May 2023 by Candida Stevens Gallery on
occasion of an exhibition featuring the work of Charlotte Evans.
Catalogue © Candida Stevens Gallery
Images © The Artist
Photography © Dan Stevens
Text @ Isabella Joughin
All rights reserved
