Charmaine Watkiss RWA (b. 1964, London) received her MA in Drawing from Wimbledon College of Art in 2018. Her practice investigates the botanical legacy of the Caribbean, with a particular interest in the healing traditions handed down through the matrilineal line. For Charmaine, public archives serve as a material from which she constructs the narrative responses in her work. Her compositions of women all use her own likeness as a way of enacting what she calls ‘memory stories’, channeling a multitude of strong female archetypes in order to inform her works on paper, some as large as life sized.
Solo shows include Charmaine Watkiss: Legacy, Abbot Hall Museum, Kirkland, Kendal, UK (2024); Charmaine Watkiss: The Wisdom Tree, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, UK (2022); The Seed Keepers, Tiwani Contemporary, Cromwell Place, London, UK (2021).
Group exhibitions include Plant Dreaming, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, UK (2025); The Land Sings Back, Drawing Room London, UK (2025); Artists First, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK (2025); Hard Graft: Work, health and rights, Wellcome Collection, London, UK (2025); Earthbound, The New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK (2025); Spirit in the land, Cummer Museum, Jacksonville, FL (2025); Conversations, Walker Art Gallery Liverpool, UK (2025); Reverb, Stephen Friedman Gallery London, UK (2024); Allegory, Royal West of England Academy (RWA), Bristol, UK (2024); Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Art, London, UK (2024); Drawing Attention, Hartlepool Art Gallery, Hartlepool, UK (2024); Spirit in the Land, Perez Museum Miami, FL (2024); Drawing Room Biennial, Tannery Way, Bermondsey, London, UK (2024); In Praise of Black Errantry, Palazzo Pisani S. Marina, Venice, Italy (2024); Drawing Attention, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Litchfield Street, Wolverhampton, UK (2024); 1-54 Presents Transatlantic Connections: Caribbean Narratives in Contemporary Art (curated by caryl ivrisse crochemar & creative renegades society), Christies London, UK (2023); Liverpool Biennial - uMoya: The sacred return of lost things, Khanyisile Mbongwa (2023); O Quilombismo, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin, Germany (2023); Spirt in the Land, Nasher Museum at Duke University, USA (2023); Your Presence Does Not Escape Me: Charmaine Watkiss, Delita Martin, Tessa Mars, Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK (2023); Drawing Attention: emerging British Artists, British Museum, London, UK (2022); The Company She Keeps, Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos, Nigeria (2022); RA Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Art, London, UK (2021); To The Edge of Time, KU Leuven Libraries, Leuven, Belgium (2021); Breakfast Under the Tree (curated by Russel Tovey), Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, UK (2021); Drawing Biennial 2021, Drawing Room, London, UK (2021); The Abstract Truth of Things, Tiwani Contemporary Gallery, London, UK (2020); Me, Myself and I, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London, UK (2020); Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, The Gallery, De Montford University, Leicester, UK (2020); Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, 66 Orchard Place, London, UK (2020); Thinking Graphite, Drawing Projects UK, Wiltshire, UK (2019); Figure This!, Thames Side Studios Gallery, London, UK (2019); Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, Salisbury Museum, Wiltshire (2019); Out of Darkness, St John on Bethnal Green, London, UK (2019); Wimbledon College of Art MA Degree Show, Merton Hall, London, UK (2018); Against Static (curated by Tania Kovats), Wimbledon Space, London, UK (2018); Lumen Residency Exhibition, Crypt Gallery, London, UK (2018); New Perspectives, The Centre for Recent Drawing, London, UK (2017); She Says, Nolia's Gallery, Bankside, London, UK (2017); Same Difference, The ArtSpace, Cass Art Kingston, London, UK (2017); East Wing Collective Group Show, Menier Gallery, London, UK (2017); Art At The Bridge #7, Tower Bridge Engine Rooms, London, UK (2016).
Highlights and collections.
In 2024, Charmaine Watkiss was awarded a 6-month Sloane Lab Fellowship, in conjunction with The British Museum and Natural History Museum. The title of her project, Investigating ancestral cures: herbs and healing traditions of the transatlantic Caribbean, primarily drew on information contained in Hans Sloane’s two volumes of a voyage to the islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica. Her intention was to delve deeper into the healing traditions of enslaved Africans and indigenous Caribbean people which fed into western science. The result of her fellowship was a brass sculptural piece which is now on permanent display in The British Museum Enlightenment Gallery’s 'Sloane' Case. In addition, she was awarded the Launch Pad LaB residency in Southwest France (2022) and the Lumen Residency in Atina, Italy (2017). As well as being invited as an Academician of the Royal West of England Academy (RWA), Charmaine Watkiss has been shortlisted for many awards, including the 198 Gallery Women of Colour Award (2020) and Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize (2019). Her work is also included in collections throughout the UK (including The British Museum, The Wellcome Collection, Leeds Art Gallery, The Government Art Collection, Cartwright Hall Museum in Bradford, Abbot Hall Museum in Kendal, Holburne Museum in Bath, Lincoln Museum), and beyond (Nasher Museum at Duke University, USA).