Zoë Charlton

Zoë Charlton (Baltimore, MD) creates large-scale figure drawings, collages, installations, and animations that position the body in dialogue with social and symbolic objects—including landscapes—each carrying layered meanings shaped by history, memory, and cultural context. Her work explores material inheritance, representation, and the assembly of identity through visual language drawn from American domestic and cultural life.

Charlton received her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin and has participated in residencies at Artpace (TX), McColl Center for Art + Innovation (NC), Ucross Foundation (WY), the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (ME), and the Patterson Residency at the Creative Alliance (MD).

Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at The Delaware Contemporary (DE), Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture (NC), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (AR), Studio Museum in Harlem (NY), Contemporary Art Museum Houston (TX), Zacheta National Gallery of Art (Poland), and Haas & Fischer Gallery (Switzerland). Her work is held in the permanent collections of The Phillips Collection (DC), Crystal Bridges Museum (AR), Baltimore Museum of Art (MD), Birmingham Museum of Art (AL), and the Studio Museum in Harlem (NY). 

She is the recipient of several awards, including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant (2012) and a Rubys Artist Grant (2014). Collaboration and socially engagedpractice are integral to her work. She co-founded sindikit (2016–2022), a collaborative art project focused on artist-led research at the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, and co-edited Out of Place: Artists, Pedagogy, and Purpose (2021), a compilation of 31 artist essays exploring the relationship between teaching and creative practice. From 2022–2023, she co-founded Kindred Creative Residence + Agro-ForesT (CRAFT), a BIPOC- and LGBTQIA+-led collective in Fletcher, Vermont committed to sustainable living, artmaking, and food justice.

Charlton served two terms on the Maryland State Arts Council (2018–2023) and currently serves on the boards of the Washington Project for the Arts (DC), Threewalls (IL), and The Phillips Collection (DC).

From 2003–2022, she was a full-time faculty member at American University in Washington, D.C., where she received tenure in 2009 and served as Chair of the Department of Art from 2015–2018. She was the first Black American faculty member to be tenured and promoted to Full Professor in the department’s history. 

Charlton joined George Mason University in Fall 2022, where she is Professor of Art and Director of the School of Art. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in drawing, research methodologies, and contemporary practices, while leading the School's academic and artistic vision.

Photo credit: Grace Roselli for Pandora BoxX Project

Degree:

• MFA, University of Texas at Austin

Specialist Area:

• Drawing and Believer in the Transformative Power of Art