charlotte jane kessler

“Charlotte Kessler is an Artist who grew up in rural Lincolnshire, UK.

Spending time in nature from a very young age and realising the transformative potential of expression through art, she became an art therapist. Later her love of indigenous earth-based teachings led to her creating rites of passage ceremonies and she has created nature-based wedding ceremonies.

Charlotte inspires others to honour their emotional landscapes and be empowered by them.

Her intuitive paintings are a visual dialogue between internal and external landscapes, that enquire into the spell of the sensuous. Her work leans into an imaginal response to the question of how we perceive the other than human world and why we have the capacity to experience beauty, wonder, and awe.”


How it all began…


Through art college, I struggled with wanting to be seen, yet desperately wanting to hide.

Art was a lifeline that gave me the safest place to land and make sense of things.

Photography, body casts, sculptures, and light installations with figures emerging out of windows, walls, and found furniture.

All explored memory, trauma, place, boundary, and attachment.

My art took up physical space which is what I most needed to experience for myself, aged 18, a country girl studying at University in London.

It wasn’t until doing a Masters's Degree in Art Therapy, that I discovered theories and concepts which became vital to understanding my earlier work and the process.

It is also the first time I started to paint...

Intuitive brush marks, dreamy washes, spontaneous expressions. They were loose and exploratory.

Art could contain all the conflicting emotions and thoughts that I didn’t know how to express. It could hold all the things I wasn’t supposed to feel.

I worked as an Art Therapist for over ten years and I saw its positive impact on mental wellbeing in the community art therapy groups I ran, and with private art therapy clients.

Shifts in well-being and insight occurred because of the way in which they could interact with the art.

It could be projected upon, hold layers of meaning, and mediate between self, other, and object.

Training to become an Art Therapist was driven by two things: a strong desire to be involved in soul work and a deep knowing that I was here to help others express their emotions.

However, I was afraid to call myself a professional Artist. I became what Julia Cameron talks about in her book The Artist Way - A Shadow Artist. Someone who makes a career in an art-related subject without stepping into the fullest expression as an artist.

 
 

From personal to universal.

For years, art was a personal and private practice and I didn’t appreciate the deep impact it could have on others.

Something radically shifted when I began showing the art that I made in response to the changes, loss, and growth that happened through grief.

Expressing my feelings from this place, such as the disconnection, and sense of fragility, actually resonated with many people.

Recently my art changed again, with another rite of passage, in menopause. The Red School named it “The Great Awakener”.

Art again was a place of safety for my sensitive EVERYTHING. I was able to express the feeling of unknown territory.

I said “No” more and learned how beautiful boundaries could feel.

I began saying “HELL YES” to ideas, marks, decorative patterns that lit me up, and colors I had previously thought too bold.

I permitted myself to paint more of what I love, and immerse myself in nature and the seasons.

I have spent the last two years asking “Why do human beings have the capacity to experience Awe and Wonder, and how can this reconnect us to nature’s intelligence to find our sense of Belonging?”

My sense of Belonging is intrinsically found in connection with the more than human world.

I help others honor their sensitivity and awaken to their own freedom and belonging.

 

Member Visual Artist Association and British Association of Art Therapists.

Registered and Professionally Insured member of The Complementary Medical Association.

MA in Art Therapy - BA Hons in Fine Art and Insured Artist Practitioner and Trader