Charmagne Coble

Born in Oxford, Charmagne is a fine artist who explores the complex relationship between absence and presence and how difficult it is to separate the two.

After being a witness to her father’s death at 18 years old and being diagnosed with an eating disorder, Charmagne began to use art as a way to express herself, creating a practice focused on loss, trauma and mental health.

By applying chemical experimentation and philosophical research, she analyses and questions the idea of traces left absent from the human body, creating works formed from decay and grief. Often using her own body as the medium, she explores bereavement by leaving traces and fragments through powders and chemicals on her skin.

Through a process of photography and printmaking Charmagne confronts what life is like after trauma, by entwining domestic and found objects to her practice to create haunting yet beautiful works of decay, grief and loss. With a strong passion for poetry, philosophy and literature she creates a harmonious balance of grief and peace in the work, believing “what can be too painful to talk about, the artwork will speak for me”.

These images are from The Impulsive – a collection of prints made from natural forms and fruits transformed through a process of digital manipulation. The collection explores the haunting journey behind eating disorders and the long path to recovery. Healthy fruit full of life becomes decayed and digitally reformed to make them ‘beautiful’ again.

Charmagne wasn’t allowed to study art at A-level because her teacher said she would struggle to keep up and that art “wasn’t really her thing”. She now has a Master’s Degree in Fine Art.

Learning to turn pain into power Charmagne continues to exhibit her work, curate exhibitions and co-founded The Impulse Movement to virtually bring together a community of artists during to Covid-19 pandemic.

charmagnecoble.com
coble705@googlemail.com