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Charlotte Sorapure NEAC Biography
Charlotte Sorapure’s current show at Messums has three dozen or so works, typically understated and in minor keys. Innocent yet somehow unsettling; reticent yet meaningful; genuinely indeterminate, their spirituality deserves contemplative study. She has a rare talent to invoke great feeling. (Dame Stephanie Shirley)
Trained at the Royal Academy, Charlotte Sorapure was directly influenced by some of the greatest artists in late twentieth century figurative art, including Roderic Barrett, Norman Blamey, Ruskin Spear and Carel Weight. And her particularly British sensitivity for sensing the otherworldly in the everyday – what is often considered a hallmark of British modernism – aligns her work with that of Stanley Spencer, who she credits as being one of her formative influences.
Sorapure has undertaken several commissions, most notably producing murals for the Royal Academy Schools library and a series of portraits for the Director of A.T. Kearney, the sponsors of the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition.
Charlotte Sorapure has exhibited widely and was elected as a member of the New English in 2007. She now lives in Bath with her husband, Saied Dai, a fellow-artist and member of the NEAC.
" Charlotte Sorapure's paintings move me deeply in their evocation of universal stories, as well as dreams. It's as if a presence is waiting just outside the frame, perhaps potentially disturbing (those shadows, for example), yet more often a shimmering, sorrowful life force which reminds me of T.S.Eliot's lines (from Preludes):
'I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.'
The rich variousness of Sorapure's subject matter is given unity by this mood of reflection. Similarly, her astounding technical proficiency is not an end in itself but the means by which she offers up private visions and personal stories for us to make universal - welcoming them into our own souls, making them our own."
BEL MOONEY - Author and journalist
EDUCATION
1992 - 1995 Royal Academy of Arts, London Post Graduate Diploma in Painting
1988 - 1991 Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Art and Technology - BA (Hons) degree in Fine Art
1987 - 1988 Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design - Foundation Diploma
2011 Messum’s Gallery, Cork Street, London N.E.A.C Exhibition
2011 ‘Pure Gold: 50 Years of the Federation of British Artists’, Mall Galleries, London
2010 ‘The Discerning Eye’ Mall Galleries, London
2010 ‘Holburne Portrait Prize’, Holburne Museum, Bath
Quest Gallery, Bath ‘Peering Under Stones’, Solo Exhibition
Messum’s Gallery, Cork Street, London ‘The Magic and Poetry of Everyday Life’
The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA ‘The British are coming!’
Royal West of England Academy Open Exhibition, Bristol, - Winner of the ‘Odin Prize’
2008-2010 Brian Sinfielad Gallery, Burford, mixed shows
New English Art Club, Mall Galleries, London
2008 Petley Fine Art, Cork Street, London, Three Women Artists
2007 Membership of New English Art Club, Mall Galleries, London
2007-2005 Petley Fine Art, Cork Street, London, Drawing Exhibition & Summer Show
2007-2005 ‘Lynn Painters and Stainers Prize’ Exhibition, London
2006-2004 Holburne Dukes Portrait Prize, Bath
2005 Thackeray Gallery, Kensington, London
Six Chapel Row Gallery, Bath
Royal West of England Academy
2002 7 Bedford Row Gallery, London - Two Man Show
2000 Hunting Art Prize Exhibition, Royal College of Art, London
1998 Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries, London
1996 B.P. Portrait Award Exhibition - National Portrait Gallery, London
Nat West Awards Exhibition, Royal Academy, London - Prize Winner
New English Art Club, Mall Galleries, London - Prize Winner
1995-1994 Waterman Fine Art Ltd, London
Royal Academy Schools Premiums - Prize Winner
1996-1993 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London
Reflections‘, Spectator Magazine, Christies, London
1994 ‘Making a Mark’ Drawing Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London
Odin Prize – Open Painting Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy
Bill Patterson Memorial Prize - New English Art Club
Cecil Jospe Prize - New English Art Club
Nat West 90’s Prize for Art - Prize winner
Richard Ford Travel Award to Madrid
Twice awarded - Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant
Royal West of England Academy - Project Bursary
Honorary Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Painter Stainers
Portraits and Murals in private and corporate collections in America and the UK including, The Worshipful Company of Painters and Stainers, a Mural Commission for the Royal Academy Schools Library and a series of portraits for the Director of A.T. Kearney, Sponsors of the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Show.
Messums opens Charlotte Sorapure's First Solo London Show
Art Knowledge News
14th March 2012
Charlotte Sorapure
Studio Publications 2012
Paintings Past and Present from the New English Art Club
Studio Publications 2010
Charlotte Sorapure elsewhere on the web