About Me

I’m Charlotte Wood, a contemporary portrait artist based in St Ives Cornwall, working primarily with oil paint. My work explores portraiture through unconventional colour palettes, fragmented applications of paint, and dramatic high-contrast lighting. I’m drawn to the balance between realism and expressive abstraction, using visible brushstrokes and layered blocks of colour to create portraits that feel both intimate and alive.

Growing up in St Ives, surrounded by its rich artistic history and creative community, had a huge influence on the way I see and approach painting. Being immersed in an environment shaped by artistic experimentation encouraged my early fascination with portraiture and the expressive possibilities of paint itself.

My recent work embraces unfinished surfaces, repeated patterns, and bold tonal contrasts, leaving traces of the painting process visible within each piece.

Through my portraits, I aim to capture presence, emotion, and individuality. Using broken colour, painterly mark-making, and layered tonal shifts, I create work that feels immediate, expressive, and human.