About

Artist Bio

Charlotte Mann Lee (b. 1996) is a visual artist from Columbia, MD. She joined Long Reach Studios in 2020, and was the first Emerging Artist Resident at the Howard County Center for the Arts from 2019-2020. Charlotte creates portraits and landscapes using watercolor and acrylic. Her paintings consist of an expressive process that communicates emotion and reflects her Christian faith, spiritual journey, and interest in nature. 

Her most recent watercolor series combines portraits and landscapes through double exposure, a technique that involves overlaying one image on top of another to create a single composition. In these works, she uses embroidery to accentuate water and floral motifs. Her inspiration stems from sources such as the Bible, nature, and personal experiences.

Charlotte has exhibited in various shows locally, including at the Columbia Art Center and the Howard County Center for the Arts. She has created privately commissioned paintings for clients since 2015. She received her BA in Studio Art (Honors, Advanced Specialization in Painting) and Art History from the University of Maryland College Park in 2018.

Artist Statement

Being a quiet, introverted person, I often feel an imaginary barrier between myself and other people. While I desire to connect with others and share a piece of myself with them, this simple human need often goes unfulfilled. Perhaps this explains my need for creative expression through art. In this expressive act, painting is an outpouring of my soul. As the brush flicks in my hand and paint oozes out onto the canvas, so I pour myself out as an offering of thanks to God, praising Him for the gifts He has given me. Where I have difficulty connecting with others, painting gives me an avenue to express myself and share who I am in the truest, most authentic way I know. My self-portraits serve as an introvert’s look into self. I can share with others what’s inside, and by addressing personal experiences, I can open a forum for others to be honest about their own experiences, whether similar or different. In my Biblical names’ portraits, I expand those experiences to encompass my literal subjects’ faith stories, the original meaning of the behind their names, and their Biblical namesakes’ lives, playing with the intersections between the three through incorporation of the Biblical (Hebrew or Greek) text, fluid, expressive drips in the background and my living subjects’ faces. In my plein air pieces, I search for the unseen atmosphere of a place through my personal impressions of it, which I record with the flick of my brush. I want to show not only what is on the surface, but also what is beneath, what is unseen, the underlying, spiritual side of life.  Hence, I use a somewhat abstract, reactionary process in terms of color, texture, and stroke to communicate feeling and emotion in my work. Portraiture, plein air, and abstract painting processes allow me to express and communicate these truths, to share my personal testimony of the spiritual realities of my life in Christ amidst varied emotions, and the highs and lows of daily life.