Rendition ft. Zoe Charlton

Several formative experiences have shaped D.C. and Baltimore-based artist Zoë Charlton’s career and inspired her work. Growing up, she was a frequent visitor to her grandmother’s blue house and wooded property in the Florida panhandle, a place that was “dense with growth and large with memory,” where extended family frequently gathered. At Florida State University, one of Charlton’s mentors, the late Ed Love, told her to “make sure you study with people who look like you.” He knew something she didn’t fully understand at the time: that by being intentional about who you surround yourself with, you are building a community – a concept that would increasingly become important in her art and in her life. More recently, Charlton purchased from a Baltimore antique store a life-sized African figure from Cameroon and named it “Sib,” because she immediately identified the sculpture as a sibling or as kin. She calls it her doppelgänger. These memories and moments have led to Charlton’s latest exhibition, “Rendition,” which addresses cultural identity, race, commodity and cultural tokenism. In conversation with Angela Carroll of BMore Art and Kristi Maiselman of CulturalDC, Zoe discusses the inspirations and context she drew on for “Rendition”. The exhibit is on view in CulturalDC’s Mobile Art Gallery from Feb. 8 to March 22. The gallery, which is a renovated shipping container is outside the main entrance to Union Market at 1309 5th Street, NE.