Charlotte Humpston is a painter and textile artist with a Masters in Fine Art from Bath Spa University. Her work is inspired by the ancient landscape of Somerset, England, where she lives and works from her studio overlooking the Vale of Avalon.
She originally trained as a theatre and costume designer with a BA Hons from Central St.Martin’s. She worked designing for London theatres before moving to Somerset in 1993. She has been painting and creating artworks in fabric, which have been exhibited in Somerset galleries and recently a collaboration shown at the Venice Biennale and the Autumn Open at the RWA, Bristol.
Working with earth pigments she creates washes of colour, made using an ancient Japanese technique of mixing earth pigments with a soya milk solution (a fixative) and painting onto woven linen.
The artworks are inspired by The Sweet Track, an ancient Neolithic causeway (5,800 yrs old) discovered on the Somerset Levels in 1970. Made from V shaped crossed, wooden poles of hazel and alder, supporting long oak planks. It runs nearly 2 km long between the Poldens Hills and the ancient Isle of Westhay, near Glastonbury.
Archaeologists have discovered fine burnished pottery and an Alpine jadeite axe, preserved in the peat, which suggests the walkway was both a place of ritual and practical use, particularly in the winter months when the marshy land was flooded.
