charlotte riley-webb
SCANNING HER CAREER
An Atlanta native, Charlotte Riley-Webb moved with her family to Cleveland, Ohio as a toddler, where she was educated in the public school system and earned her B.F.A. degree from The Cleveland Institute of Art but has continued her education throughout the years. As a professional visual artist, Charlotte 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 in 2001 and exhibited in seven different museums and fine art galleries in the south. Over the years her venues extended across the country and beyond the states to include Surinam, South America and Anguilla, British West Indies. Webb's work is included in numerous, private, business and corporate collections. Her public works installations include Faces and Phases of Fulton, a mural size painting installed in the Fulton County Public Service office in Atlanta and the installation of her collaborative new medium, "sculpted paintings" which she creates with her sculptor husband, Lucious. The couple installed an outdoor public arts work in the concert district of downtown Hampton, Virginia for which they were awarded "The Hampton Arts Commission Award of Excellence" and their piece, "Sounds of Perpetual Spring", was voted as the city's People's Choice Purchase Award for their permanent collection. They will be installing "Celebrating The Arts", the commissioned sculpted painting in the fall of 2010, at the new arts center in Shreveport, LA.  Contemporary realistic with an abstract flair is how she described her representational works. This rhythmic style with bright bold colors, easily translated into the illustrations for six children's books Rent Party Jazz and Sweet Potato Pie, The Entrance Place of Wonders, in it Charlotte invites the reader to enjoy the rhythms of her paintings as you glide through what she feels was one of the most exciting cultural periods in history for African Americans, The Harlem Renaissance. In it they documented the poems written for children during the period to which Charlotte adapted her colorful, rhythmic signature style as well as in Today Around Our Way by Abrams Books. She also did the illustrations for I Like Brown by author Joyce Moore. Charlotte was one of twelve artists contributing to the 2010 NAACP Image Award winning, Our Children Can Soar published by Bloomsbury Books. She has just completed the illustrations for Seed Magic for Peachtree Publishers.
While building her fine art career, she opted to address the need for socialization and creative expression in several of Atlanta's senior facilities, at that time an overlooked population. Charlotte taught art classes to senior citizens as a volunteer for thirteen years from1984-1995 then again in 1998-2001. An art gallery for the senior students' work was opened in one of the high-rises and Charlotte was awarded materials grants by the City of Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs. For this effort in 1987, Webb was awarded the Iota Phi Lambda Visual Arts Award granted in eight different areas of community service.
Contemporary realistic with an abstract flair is how she described her representational works. This rhythmic style with bright bold colors, easily translated into the illustrations for six children's books Rent Party Jazz and Sweet Potato Pie, The Entrance Place of Wonders, in it Charlotte invites the reader to enjoy the rhythms of her paintings as you glide through what she feels was one of the most exciting cultural periods in history for African Americans, The Harlem Renaissance. In it they documented the poems written for children during the period to which Charlotte adapted her colorful, rhythmic signature style as well as in Today Around Our Way by Abrams Books. She also did the illustrations for I Like Brown by author Joyce Moore. Charlotte was one of twelve artists contributing to the 2010 NAACP Image Award winning, Our Children Can Soar published by Bloomsbury Books. She has just completed the illustrations for Seed Magic for Peachtree Publishers.
An evolution of study, growth and expansion has led Charlotte to her new and present genre, abstract art. She began the process by studying with two of this countries premier abstract artist, the late John T. Scott of New Orleans and Moe Brooker of Philadelphia. This opportunity aided her in finding her own "abstract niche" and helped propel the career which she had been hinging on for many years, even in her representational works. Of the national juried competitions which Charlotte has entered with her new and current genre, she has thus far received several first place awards and induction in NAWA. Becoming a 2006 Pollack-Krasner Foundation Award recipient further validated her current genre. In 2005, '06 and '07 she received and successfully completed an artists' residency at the Hambidge Art Center in the Georgia Mountains. It was during these times that her painted canvases sometimes expanded beyond six feet. Being awarded a month fellowship to the Vermont Studio Arts Center, in May 2010 also afforded her the time and space to expand her canvases and cultural acquaintances; as her network included artists from all over the world.
Among her associations and gallery affiliations are The National Association of Women Artists, (NAWA) New York and its local Florida chapter, The Degas Pastel Society, LA and The African American Arts Alliance, Indianapolis, IN, The Artist's House Gallery in Bryson, NC, and Premier Arts, Atlanta.
Her rhythms continue to resonate far beyond the boundaries of her canvas and interest in different cultures across the globe; likewise the abstract works and book illustrations have transitioned into her Charlotte Riley-Webb energy and style. She has woven her shapes and colors into compositions which she calls "Earth Tunes", which she feels are as valid, and have as much emotional power as music. . "My Earth Tunes" series is a collaboration between the rhythms of nature and my earth tones' palette, directly or indirectly spun from its melodies. These sounds that mirror the earth's palette are integrated into unique colorful schemes that often dance across the canvas in staccato strokes and marks. A good example of a direct coalition of this theory can be viewed on the video of national music composer Meira Warshauer in her production of "Living, Breathing Earth. In it she uses my art to simulate the sounds of the cicadas, birds and background sounds of nature. www.meirawarshauer.com/NEW/pages/breathing_earth.html
"Throughout the years, I've found the literary genre almost as fulfilling as painting and have written a number of poems, short stories and screen plays. I've used some of my writings and those I've read or heard as a child to foster a series of visuals. These "lines" extracted from these writings are truly metaphors for life and the impetus for what I feel is a personally intriguing series of paintings. Reflective in this series is the journey through my life; a colorful kaleidoscope of opinions and experiences." Her current series, "Still Running Lines Through My Head", highlighting the written memories and experiences of this artist, debuted at the Hammonds House Museum in November 2010 in her retrospective exhibition, "No Crystal Stair", then to the NAAHBCU Museum in Montgomery, in Spring, 2011 and will open in May 2012 at the Bessie Smith Cultural Arts Center, Chattanooga, TN. Charlotte, with the Premier Art team in Atlanta, will have work on display at the Zucot Gallery in Castleberry Hills, their new permanent location. Charlotte was one of the fifteen artists selected to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the Freedom Riders through the tumultuous south in May of 1961, in the opening of the museum in their honor. Her painting "Solidarity in Song" will be on display in the Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery until June, 2012
Whatever genre Charlotte Riley-Webb chooses to work, her bold, colorful palette and rhythmic style remains the signature of
Among her associations and gallery affiliations are The National Association of Women Artists, (NAWA) New York and its local Florida chapter, The Degas Pastel Society, LA and The African American Arts Alliance, Indianapolis, IN, The Artist's House Gallery in Bryson, NC, and Premier Arts, Atlanta.
Her rhythms continue to resonate far beyond the boundaries of her canvas and interest in different cultures across the globe; likewise the abstract works and book illustrations have transitioned into her Charlotte Riley-Webb energy and style. She has woven her shapes and colors into compositions which she calls "Earth Tunes", which she feels are as valid, and have as much emotional power as music. . "My Earth Tunes" series is a collaboration between the rhythms of nature and my earth tones' palette, directly or indirectly spun from its melodies. These sounds that mirror the earth's palette are integrated into unique colorful schemes that often dance across the canvas in staccato strokes and marks. A good example of a direct coalition of this theory can be viewed on the video of national music composer Meira Warshauer in her production of "Living, Breathing Earth. In it she uses my art to simulate the sounds of the cicadas, birds and background sounds of nature. www.meirawarshauer.com/NEW/pages/breathing_earth.html
"Throughout the years, I've found the literary genre almost as fulfilling as painting and have written a number of poems, short stories and screen plays. I've used some of my writings and those I've read or heard as a child to foster a series of visuals. These "lines" extracted from these writings are truly metaphors for life and the impetus for what I feel is a personally intriguing series of paintings. Reflective in this series is the journey through my life; a colorful kaleidoscope of opinions and experiences." Her current series, "Still Running Lines Through My Head", highlighting the written memories and experiences of this artist, debuted at the Hammonds House Museum in November 2010 in her retrospective exhibition, "No Crystal Stair", then to the NAAHBCU Museum in Montgomery, in Spring, 2011 and will open in May 2012 at the Bessie Smith Cultural Arts Center, Chattanooga, TN. Charlotte, with the Premier Art team in Atlanta, will have work on display at the Zucot Gallery in Castleberry Hills, their new permanent location. Charlotte was one of the fifteen artists selected to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the Freedom Riders through the tumultuous south in May of 1961, in the opening of the museum in their honor. Her painting "Solidarity in Song" will be on display in the Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery until June, 2012
Whatever genre Charlotte Riley-Webb chooses to work, her bold, colorful palette and rhythmic style remains the signature of all of her art.
- Contact studio:
- (678)284-1770.
- Contact charlotte via email:
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cwebbart@bellsouth.net
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