The Dot Project has curated One Enters a Room for Women-Led Galleries Now, Artsy’s Women’s History Month initiative. It features work by myself, Elizabeth Dimitroff and Isabel Muñoz-Newsome examining intimacy as a material condition. In this article I provide more context to my selected works (of which the presentation takes it’s name) and the way I work with my personal archive.

Questions I get fairly often in regards to my practice:

1. ‘Isn’t it hard to make such personal work?’

2. ‘Do your family mind you making work about them?’

I don’t have rehearsed answers to these yet, but they currently live somewhere between yes and no. My work touches on grief in its broadest sense. There are still beautiful, funny, moving moments even in the hardest stages of grieving. It’s normal to laugh, to dance and to feel completely numb. Letting yourself sit with all of that as it comes, enables you to eventually move through it. That is the crux of my work. I take all of these feelings and give them a soft place to land, mostly indirectly.

My emotions are not always deeply intwined despite the content of the work. It’s often more embodied and in that sense, the process is not hard. The Skifeee fontasy flim studies are an example of this in practice. They were my initial sketches for the larger drawings on display at ‘Islands in the City’ last year, a collaborative exhibition with Gallery OCA and Royal Overseas League. I wrote about them last year here. Working from photos and memory, I made these two A4-ish drawings thinking about the way my Granpa relied on communicating with his hands following some health scares later in his life.

Initially these were a little daunting, as it was the first time in a while that I’d drawn him in such a direct way. A lot of artists draw their loved ones near the end of their lives, but it was honestly the furthest thing from my mind at the time. When I started to make these, I just had this sensation that I was ready and I ran with that. Green and purple is my favourite colour combination, with green offering some grounding. It lulls you into a state of calm, even in its most vibrant form. Starting with that colour gave me a neutral, comforting entry point while purples and reds give me something stark to play against it. A love of contradiction, or a slightly harsher balancing force.

Most of my artwork titles come from conversations I’ve had or heard about and things I’ve read. Skifeee fontasy flim is a nod to a silly family memory that I love. When I told my parents the titles, they immediately burst out laughing and we got to relive that moment again. I work with oral histories and memory, and reminiscing is a big part of my archival review. It brings questions of reliability and record-keeping, that I allow to become part of the work. That brings me on to the question of my family’s response and the other works in the presentation.

One enters a room and history precedes, What does this have to teach us? and One enters a room and history follows are drawn from a book of Polaroid photos that belonged to my Granpa. It includes photos of our family, his friends, himself and his garden patch. He had a board of photos in his living room, but I didn’t discover this book until he passed. Seeing what he selected to display and keep in the book brought up some questions of privacy and perception: what he was happy for anyone to see, what did he keep to himself and why? The same decisions I am in constant dialogue with.

I recently found this article on the ethics of sharing your life as a creative. It speaks to the role of boundaries and vulnerability as a creative and how intimacy becomes a form of currency.

It’s a conversation I’ve had with other artists whose work toes the same line. Part of making intimate work about quiet, personal moments is discussions of consent. When some people hear this, they’re immediately moved to defend the work. “You can’t let their feelings stop you from doing what you need to do!” and I wonder why they can’t hear me when I say it doesn’t.

While I’m grateful that my family are incredibly supportive of what I do, not everything I discover needs to become display. A lot of this work is investigation and those learnings don’t always need to visibly feed what I present. There will be questions that, as an artist, I don’t owe you answers to. You can sit with that ambiguity, face whatever that brings up for you and then realise that my work has done what I set out for it to do. My subject matter is a vessel to steer you into deeper thought about yourself.

For the ‘One Enters a Room’ drawings, I know some but not all of the people in the photos. It made me think about how memories distort and shift with time if we don’t maintain and preserve our personal archives. A few of the photos are very dark and blurred, probably from my Granpa testing his camera out. This inspired my approach for these drawings, with heavier layering and less definition. I wanted it to feel like you could dive into the drawings despite their size, a bit like sifting through hazy memories.

Ultimately, navigating personal work and everything that comes with it is something I’m constantly refining. There is an element of self-preservation that you barter with as an artist, so I suppose I’m searching for ways to retain balance with that. The work itself is just what I choose to do at any given time. I started this year making work that looked more at my own archive: looking back at photos I’ve taken, studies that never went further etc. I was once told to look at my practice as a constellation of things. Those questions I regularly get asked feed into that, and allow me to expand and retract as I need to. It helps to be reminded that the core purpose of archival work is preservation, and part of that is the archivist treating themselves with the care they extend to the work.

One Enters a Room is on view on Artsy from 6 - 31 March 2026.

The Dot Project presents One Enters a Room bringing together the work of Elizabeth Dimitroff, Isabel Muñoz-Newsome, and Natalie Charles. The presentation examines intimacy as a material condition for Women-Led Galleries Now, Artsy’s Women’s History Month initiative.

To see more of my work, please head to my website ncharles.art or follow me on Instagram @ncharles.art

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Following up from my 2025 ramble with another year review, this time through art that isn’t mine. I’ve seen a lot this year through travel, nudges from friends, being chronically (horrifically) online and the accessibility to art that living in London affords. I’ve also seen things that I’ve been dying to see for a long time which resulted in a fair bit of public crying. I tried to narrow it down to 12 things I’ve revisited either physically or through gawping at my phone. The ‘reviews’ are roughly in order of when I saw them, they vary in length and mainly come from my gut response. Enjoy!

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1. Viviane Sassen, Foam Amsterdam

I entered 2025 in an Uber with my friend on the way to a random party in Amsterdam that we had booked a few days before. As in clocks are striking, fireworks are fireworking and it’s us and our poor driver. In our defence, we landed around 11pm? Much to our surprise, a lot of galleries in Amsterdam are open on New Years Day so we did a few, but Foam is one of my favourites. It reminds me a lot of Autograph in Shoreditch (another favourite). Although my practice is mainly drawing, I used to be an animator so I look at photography/film for composition inspo.

They had a retrospective of Viviane Sassen, whose work I wasn’t familiar with but this series made me gasp. I also did some little scribbles in the gallery. Playing with light/shadow is one of my favourite ways to work, and these did that for me. Also obsessed with this incredible turquoise which is a colour I reach for often when using colour pencils. My grandma bought me a jewellery set with turquoise and pearls which is where that love comes from.

2. J.A Donker Duyvis, Portrait of Anton de Kom, Wereldmuseum

It was my second time seeing this drawing and it slows my heart rate down EVERY. TIME. The colour palette, the gentle expression, the rendering of the hair. I don’t often get to see older works in soft pastel in museums (it’s not everyday oil painting man). I haven’t looked into the artist or sitter and writing this has reminded me to get on to that.

3. Belkis Ayón, Nlloro (Weeping), Modern Art Oxford

I absolutely rinsed the Rail Sale on Trainline and managed to get day trips to Oxford and Manchester for less than £30 all in to see some shows. Incredible work. Also incredible were Belkis’ prints. Some of them are floor to ceiling???? There were very magical circular ones but this one absolutely floored me. A few months before this visit, I made my end of year exhibition selections for my Masters, three days after my Granpa passed. This work summed up were I was at with my grief and all it’s moving parts. There were days I charged through and days I barely knew my own name, but it’s all part of it. I use Belkis as a reference in classes and workshops often, please do take time to find out more about her work and her story. And a huge thank you to the MAO staff who sent me an exhibition catalogue because they had sold out on the day of my visit.

3. Barbara Walker, The Ritual, Whitworth Art Gallery

Yes I went to Manchester and back in one day for this show, I told you this review would be slightly unhinged. There are a few artists that I will regularly travel for their shows if I can (Barbara and Phoebe Boswell mainly). I visited Barbara’s Turner Contemporary takeover a couple of times. It felt like such a gift to see her process unfold. This painting reminded me of a drawing I made a few years ago of my Dad, Granpa and Uncle-in-law playing dominoes, and got me thinking of ways I could push and develop the concept if I were to revisit it.

4. Noah Davis, Painting for my Dad and Seventy Works, Barbican Centre

A questionable quality photocopy of this painting has lived on my studio wall for over two years now. I love work that doesn’t over explain, allows you to fill in the story or project your own on to it. I think Davis has a very special gift for this, and it’s something I try to emulate in my own work. The day after my Granpa passed, I didn’t know what to do with myself so I went to the studio (???) and made a small round drawing after this painting. It has a line from my Granpa’s diary in it that I return to often:

“In life one must never give up because there is a dark shadow hanging over us all, and the best to do is have a lot of patience”

I also really loved the tiny series of collages that Davis made from his hospital bed. It was a reminder that small consistent actions are what pushes your practice forward.

5. Iba N’Diaye, The Blues Singer, Centre Pompidou

I managed to fit a few museum visits around Fête de la Musique in Paris in June. This painting in the Paris Noir show sat next to a large projection of singers and musicians in flow. I’ve been thinking a lot about movement and layering in my work this year so I took quite a bit of time here, trying to absorb the marks and rhythms. And that delicious deep blue.

6. Jenny Saville, National Portrait Gallery

Respectfully, there are no words. It’s Jenny!!! I’ve loved her weird, layered drawings since I stumbled into a show of them at Gagosian in 2016. It was the first encounter I had with a female artist whose was presenting drawings at that scale and with that level of vulnerability in the subject matter. I wished the NPG retrospective had more drawings.

7. Sari Dienes, Richard Saulton Gallery

Warm, creepy hands. Always a yes from me. Also enjoyed the repetition.

8. Madrid highlights

I managed to overlap my Prado residency with the opening of the Maruja Mallo retrospective at the Reina Sofia. Mallo is a Galician surrealist artist (similar time to Leonara Carrington but from the same Spanish region as my mum). I saw this portrait in a class at RDS and it’s lived in my mind since. There’s a serenity mixed with uncertainty in the expression that is unsettling, but still so beautiful. I’m planning new linocut prints for 2026 and this tiny painting of a man on the beach? was a surprising source of inspiration.

I am not typically a still life enthusiast but I visited these grapes most days that I went into the Prado. It’s one of a growing (but still small) number of works by female artists on display. They GLISTEN and literally look like you could pluck them straight off the canvas and eat them. Every day I walked around that museum I saw something new, but I always found my way back to these.

9. Valencia highlights

We took a day trip to Valencia to break up the pace of the month in Madrid. It also allowed me the opportunity to see some of the Sorolla Museum collection while it’s home in Madrid is being refurbished. What struck me most was how similar my colour palette is to his, considering he was making these works over 100 years ago. The fluidity, THE MASTERY OF LIGHT. I wish I had longer here, he was so ahead of his time.

The tiny sketches on old receipts from hotels by Kara Walker at IVAM were a great reminder not to be too precious. The main thing is to turn up for your practice however you can. Loved this cluster of images from a performance work in the Senga Nengundi/Maren Hassinger show there as well. It’s going to take me such a long time to process everything I took in on this trip.

10. Naudline Pierre, James Cohan Gallery at Frieze London

I had initially planned for downtime after Spain but I came back to artworld Christmas (Frieze etc). I also ran a workshop at The Other Art Fair the day after I landed (what even is rest?). Seeing anything from Naudline IRL has been on my bucket list for a biiiiit! I watched an online talk she did (I don’t remember where it was) about the personal mythology and ancestral connections behind her practice, which is something I tap into through my linocuts and work with handmade paints. Ethereal and unapologetic.

11. Lisa Brice, Sadie Coles HQ

It really was the year I saw a bunch of my heroes you know. Brice is one of those artists that tells you an entire narrative in a single image that has very little in it. It’s usually striking, powerful women smoking and drinking alongside feral-looking cats in a limited colour palette. That strength and clarity of vision, and the trust in your craft and the viewer? Magic. I really loved this one in particular for its play with image planes and the subtle but distinct decisions that Brice has made with the shifts of colour in the reflection.

12. Kerry James Marshall, Royal Academy

An insane body of work from a master of his craft. I’m hoping to go back to the show in the new year because I was so IN AWE on this viewing. I just kept sighing and mumbling “FUUUUUCK” because I couldn’t comprehend making work with so much woven into it, and that scale!? Really really impressive.

But the thing that got me most was the intention in every aspect of the work. Meticulous doesn’t even begin to cover it. The little smudge of purple in the bottom right on this painting haunts me, it’s such a clever balancing element that shifts how we digest the overall colour palette. It hasn’t necessarily made me want to make more complex, multi-element works but I do have a deep appreciation for his commitment. That drive to keep questioning and pushing the work to the furthest extent of itself is something I will take into 2026.

In total, I think I cried around 5/6 times in galleries this year? Considering the year I’ve had, that feels fairly light. Thank you for making it to the end of my ramblings! You can see more of my sketchbook scribbles on my website here and I sporadically share them on Instagram too. Hope you have a happy new year, celebrating whatever way makes the most sense to you - I’ll be eating my own weight in snacks with a few people that made me year softer.

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Before you continue, a gentle trigger warning: this text will touch on grief, loss and mental health. If these themes are difficult for you, please don’t feel obligated to read on. Take care of yourself however you need to.

Presenting, positioning, pivoting

Coming back to my art practice and completing a masters, I’ve felt like a fish out of water. Despite how I might come across online, I have little context for how the art world works. I’m the first ‘creative’ in the family but we have a history of taking calculated risks, which I’m using to my advantage. I’m not afraid to ask questions, I listen diligently and take notes at every opportunity. I had very loose goals for the year which I’ve really flung myself at (to some success!)

I thought exhibiting every 2-3 months felt attainable and enough to maintain some kind of visibility while I figure out what I’m doing. I’ve exceeded that by being in 8 shows of varying scales and presented my work alongside some of my heroes. I also had my first magazine cover feature! I don’t necessarily have a ‘favourite’ from the year. I feel like I’ve been weaving many threads while they unravel around me, but I’ve genuinely enjoyed learning as I go. The experience has reinforced the importance of how my work is placed and the balance of the types of shows I want to be part of.

I’m still grieving and my work navigates the intricacies of that. There are visible strands like familial grief but I’m also incorporating more intimate layers, mourning versions of myself. It is really important that the work is held with the level of care I create it with. I’ve had to negotiate where my boundaries lie on what I share, how I share it, and accepting that I will have to release control sometimes. Despite the themes in my work, I am largely detached once a piece is complete but it’s been something to stay aware of.

Draw, nap, snack, repeat

I was actually on Skyscanner looking at flights to Madrid for my birthday when I received the email to say I had been selected for the Richard Ford Award. The Award enabled me to spend one month drawing from the Prado’s collection. I still can’t articulate what that trip has meant for me. I’m starting to accept that the language I need might not exist or that the research drawings I’ve made there might say it better than any words could.

Being mixed race, you occupy a space between cultures and while I’m very proud of my heritage (Dominica and Spain), I’ve always felt slightly outside of both. Seeing that my work can allow me to travel home and connect in this way has been really special and it’s opened up a lot of possibilities for future-planning.

I really loved my time in Madrid, it’s like everything London has but half the pace. It’s probably the first time since I left my Operations role nearly four years ago that my entire nervous system slowed down. It wasn’t perfect, Spain still has major issues with discrimination but despite that, I felt very free. It made me realise the importance of having time and space as an artist to mostly switch off and focus on one thread of your practice.

‘I would like it to end soon’

This year I wanted to push myself to take up more space. I’m naturally more introverted, I spend a lot of time alone or in my head, all the traditional ‘only child’ hallmarks. What possessed me to apply to draw on national TV you ask? I don’t know (the possibility of a £10k prize perhaps).

When I got the call from Storyvault Films offering me a place on Portrait Artist of the Year, I went completely silent. My mouth just hung open while I tried to remember when I applied. I eventually blurted out some kind of acceptance much to the amusement of my producer (the lovely Nic!)

I’ll start by saying that the show’s team were so kind and supportive, particularly when I had a mild panic at the beginning of what ended up being an almost 12 hour day filming. I did start to enjoy the process at some stage, but it is mostly a blur. I loved meeting the other artists, both on the day and online once it aired, and our sitter Kyla was so warm and funny. I really thought I’d get away with being in the background of the episode but my appearance in the trailer has been a great source of entertainment for many (you’re all welcome).

The response to me being on the show has been interesting. It’s mostly been lovely, and I held a very adorable watch party with friends when I got back from Spain. But that level of visibility has also come with some weird interactions. There are people who REALLY dislike unusual formats and materials which is fine, each to their own. I’m very aware that I look much younger than I am so some of the new ‘followers’ I’ve gained online and how they interact with my content has been uncomfortable. I’ve not felt unsafe at any stage but I have had to work through that feeling and things it has brought up. Ultimately I had a good experience and I’m proud of what I made on the day under that amount of pressure.

Answering the unanswerable

For the last few months, particularly since coming back from Spain, I’ve not known how to respond when people ask how I am. I know we are expected to say ‘I’m fine’ or ‘great thanks’ to avoid making people uncomfortable but it hasn’t felt right. I’ve settled into saying ‘I’m doing my best’.

The last few years have been full of upheaval, rapid changes and loss. Shortly after returning from the residency, we had an unexpected family bereavement that hit me with a force I wasn’t expecting. I realised it wasn’t necessarily that event, but a culmination of things I had been pushing through. I needed to take a break and start to look after myself properly again. I’m getting back on track gradually and trying to give myself as much grace as possible through that.

I’m certainly doing better than I have done in a long time. I move more confidently, I have a mostly unwavering faith that everything will work out (highly favoured, divinely protected ✨). But I also have to be very pragmatic, one year out of graduating has been HARD. I’m someone that thrives in order and routine and right now, everyday is completely different. It’s taken a lot for me to learn to embrace this pace and I’m grateful to have had a lot of love and support around me while I figure that out.

Small consistent actions

I’ve been thinking a lot about impact. What kind can I have, what can my work do, what’s the potential here? In a more tangible sense, I’ve seen this through teaching and running workshops. Holding space for people to come as they are, sometimes offering reprieve, sometimes just letting them exist in a space. I try to remind my students that sometimes the most productive thing you can do is allow yourself a minute to sit in whatever you’re feeling.

It’s been really rewarding to have students and workshop attendees who follow up and have carried on a task I’ve set in their own time. I think of tutors or mentors I’ve had who have done that for me and it’s really moving to be able to give that help to someone else.

Most importantly, I wanted to make more space for joy in 2025. I’ve met some really wonderful people, laughed and danced until my body has ached and had some really beautiful moments, big and small. It’s been a strange soup of a year, but it’s made me really hopeful for what’s to come.

Context

My practice explores seemingly insignificant interactions that we carry with us. Those small moments that you may initially take for granted but find yourself returning to. A key part of this work is collating stories from my family, in discussion and through things they’ve kept. I’m interested in the personal logic that dictates what we hold on to and how we pass those histories on.

I recently came into possession of my Granpa’s diaries, which has made me think a lot about conversations I had and couldn’t have with him: the stories he shared of his life and experiences coming to the UK from Dominica, what he inevitably left out and the gaps I’ve started to fill in myself.

I have some audio from an interview we did in 2011 after he had a health scare. Listening back reminded me of the physicality in how he told these stories despite multiple health issues. Although his movements were often slow and measured, there was an animation to them that allowed him to still convey how sharp his wit was.

The drawing’s layered gestures give a sense of how it felt to watch him in this internal negotiation between his body and mind. The perspective puts the viewer in his point of view, acknowledging both his resilience and fragility. He would switch between English and Patois pronouncing words however made sense to him and the title of the work comes from my favourite incident of this.

Process

Making these was a little different to my usual approach as I don’t typically make preliminary sketches or large works. I started with two A4 drawings which acted as reference images for the layering, combined with the photos I had of his hands and my memory. The layered effect is something I’ve been playing with more this year, a nod to my animation background. I had also recently been to the Jenny Saville show at the National Portrait Gallery, who has been a huge influence on my love of drawing since college.

I get a lot of questions about how I work with soft pastels. I tend to work across the entire image, blocking out large flat sections (as you can see below). I then work into each chunk layering multiple colours to build my tonal range. Any one section may have up to seven colours layered into it to create what you can see. I use my fingers mainly, but also an old make up brush, colour shapers, various erasers, rags, cotton buds - anything pliable really. It’s more about the pressure of application than the tools themselves.

Breakthroughs

I made three of these drawings in total (one I treat as separate to this series which I’ll keep under wraps for now). Something felt off each time but with encouragement from my wonderful studio-mate Annis Harrison and a helpful crit group led by Harriet Gillett, I pushed myself to keep trying until I got where I wanted.

I had the drawings laid out on the floor and realised I could arrange two of them in such a way that they connected, forming a loop of hands. This felt important, a sort of connecting of worlds between where I am making the work and where he is now (depending on what you believe). I let this happy accident inform how I presented the work at the ROSL show, which the curators were encouraging and supportive of.

The title also reflects a breakthrough of sorts for my Granpa. After a big health scare, he had to effectively learn to speak again. He would often read things aloud to practice. While we were always supportive and honestly in awe of his progression, sometimes he would say things that were just really funny. As much as it could be a difficult relationship, I miss his wicked sense of humour and I like to think I’ve inherited a little bit of his determination (more like audacity).

The exhibition opening marked the one year anniversary of his passing. It was a very surreal realisation but above everything, I mainly feel proud of my work and I hope he is too.

The ‘Skifeee fontasy flim’ drawings are on display at ‘Islands in the City’, a landmark exhibition of contemporary Caribbean art at the Royal Over-seas League until 9 November 2025.

Curated by Sherece Rainford (Gallery OCA) and Louis Chapple (ROSL Arts), the show brings together over 20 established and emerging artists with heritage from across the Caribbean.

For upcoming event listings including exhibitions and workshops, visit my website ncharles.art or follow me on Instagram @ncharles.art

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I have been hesitant to speak publicly about these drawings. They are from photos I found in my Granpa’s flat after he passed, of a relative I have heard a lot about but never got to meet. This started an exploration into conversations I had and couldn’t have with him while he was here, and things I’ve started to accept through this dialogue I’m having with what he left behind.

There is a private logic to how we navigate grief and memory, grasping at fragments in order to find answers or to seek comfort. Sometimes we have to honour that not everything needs to be understood. Our only task is to learn to move with it and through it. Making these drawings has helped me to come to terms with that myself, from my often strained relationship with him to mourning versions of my own life and what might have been.

It’s a strange gift to take these heavy, twisting emotions and turn them into something beautiful and light. This softening is the main intention in my work. There is something in the intensity of the controlled composition balanced with the sensitivity in my application that translates in a way other people respond to strongly. I’m learning that there is a lot of power in allowing yourself to be tender. I hope that my work continues to encourage others to go forward a little more gently too.

Thank you to everyone that visited ‘Subvert Your Gaze to Meet Mine’ at Twilight Contemporary curated by Téa-Anya Earle. The show invited you to experience the explorations, memories, dreams and imaginings contained within the worlds of an assemblage of Black women and non-binary artists.

I’m so proud of the show and grateful for the generous, nourishing conversations I’ve been able to have about my work because of it. I also had the opportunity to run a clay totem workshop as part of an evening curated by Aarony Bailey for Twilight Lates x Dazed, which I’ve reviewed here.

For upcoming event listings including exhibitions and workshops, visit my website ncharles.art or follow me on Instagram @ncharles.art

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