I started my entrepreneurial art journey in 2016 by making digital collage pop-art on my laptop. I went under the name "Up Late Cant Sleep Productions" for a while and did multiple shows, sold my work online as prints and other products, won the Untapped People’s Choice Award at Artist Project in 2019, been featured in a few small publications and have done some commercial commissions. My art predominantly focused on celebrities, societal apathy, beauty standards and irony.
The subtext in my work quickly started to show itself: behind the opulence & glamour of old hollywood aesthetics and tongue-in-cheek y2k humour was a bubbling sense of angst, rage and rebellion towards the objectifying nature within femininity on a sociological scale.
In my recent years as an artist my style started to evolve into simple illustrations with a newly unearthed muse: Riot-Grrrls to the rescue.
Penabellishment is my newest evolution in my art journey where I create wearable pieces of punk-tastic, glitzy, feminist art as handmade, acrylic jewelry.
FROM POP CULTURE ARTist
TO JEWELRY designer
Charlotte penabel
YOUNGER YEARS
Growing up in a small town, my creativity was loud and undeniable. I'd often be found rallying-up all the neighbourhood kids into my many theatrical projects. I was specifically fascinated with the production side of telling stories, and spent a huge amount of my upbringing exploring all the ways I could express myself artistically. I was never short of art supplies as my mother’s art studio was always filled with anything I ever needed. My imagination was always strongly encouraged and supported by my parents: my father; a writer and tv producer and my mother a designer and painter.
Sprinkled throughout my adventurous and idyllic childhood were moments of deep trauma that I compartmentalized away by daydreaming up movie scripts, novels, fashion sketches and even song lyrics.
I was accepted into a visual arts program at a visual and media arts high school in Toronto where I studied and experimented with many different mediums of visual art.
After graduating, I had a specific curiosity in film editing and writing. I attempted film school, only to drop out and become an alcoholic instead. My trauma caught up with me and repeatedly told me I wasn’t worthy of succeeding or fulfilling my dreams. I shunned away my creativity for many years and dove head first into self hatred, sabotage and emotional, psychological disaster.
Ive been sober since 2012 and have done over a decade of healing - even going back to college to study social work and then university to study sociology.
I slowly allowed myself to get creative again and started making pop-art on my computer, which then unfolded into a whole business of selling my art, doing shows, commissions etc. Randomly enough, I'm now making riot-grrrl inspired jewelry and I couldn't be more happy with my creations and am so excited to continue evolving, designing and perfecting my visions.