Opening earlier this month at Connor Contemporary Art in Washington DC is a solo exhibition of new large format drawings by Zoe Charlton, on view until January 3, 2009. The exhibition, entitled Family, shows concurrently at Connor Contemporary with solo shows of work by David Levinthal and Gabriel de la Mora. Formerly, Charlton’s drawings have been more intimate in size, as seen at Nathan Larramendy Gallery in California and at past shows in DC, drawing the viewer as close as possible to experience the delicate nuances of each figure. In Family, Charlton is working much larger, on mainly 60 x 40 inch paper, boasting life-drawn portraits of the artist’s female cousins. In typical Charlton manner, the women exist within a sort of contextless setting in which subtle cues lead the viewer to form ideas about who is being represented and what the artist is trying to say. However, this time Charlton focuses on her Floridian family members rather than the more abstract, and historically based figures of her previous work, and the backgrounds remain a pristine white. Again the women of Rubenesque proportion are found in positions sure to raise any eyebrow or blush any cheek. The delicately depicted women, in graphite and splashes of gauche, remind you of what makes Charlton’s work so sensual and disturbing, but as seen through a veil of virtue unique to this new body of work.

Zoe Charlton received her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin and her BFA from Florida State University. Her work has been exhibited at The Baltimore Museum of Art, Mixed Greens in New York, Wendy Cooper Gallery in Chicago and is in the collection of the Studio Museum of Harlem, among others.