Tuesday, March 24, 5 – 6:30 PM, UMBC Fine Arts Building, Recital Hall, RSVP
Artist Zoë Charlton will speak about the process behind creating Third Watch, her new public art work featuring illuminated sculptures depicting three pregnant female figures, inspired by African traditions. The three figures installed at the top of the North Avenue Market in Baltimore watch over the neighborhood and are meant to invoke a sense of peace, protection, and light, qualities that the community hopes to embrace as it moves forward after years of struggle. Third Watch was made possible through a commission from the Inviting Light Initiative funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies to help revitalize the Station North Arts and Entertainment District. Charlton will be joined by Adam Nelson and Peter Karis from Paradise Labs, the team that she worked with to fabricate the work.
Zoë Charlton builds a visual language of assembly through drawing, collage, installation, and animation as ways to bring fragments of history into conversation. Her work explores how identity, place, and material culture converge in the figure, where personal inheritance and memory meet. Across large-scale graphite drawings and layered paper constructions, she maps the relationship between body and landscape, inheritance and visibility. Each work becomes a kind of ledger as an account of how objects and histories carry us, how the past lingers in gesture and surface. Charlton is a Professor of Art and Director of the School of Art at George Mason University, where she cultivates a culture of care, inquiry, and shared leadership within the arts in higher education. From 2003 to 2022, Charlton taught full-time at American University in Washington, DC, where she earned tenure in 2009, chaired the Department of Art (2015–2018), and became the first Black American tenured Full Professor in the department. Charlton’s practice extends beyond the studio into collective forms of making and leading. She co-founded ‘sindikit (2016–2022), an artist initiative that investigated intersections of art, gender, sexuality, race, and their economies, and co-launched as a founding member, Kindred CRAFT (Kindred Creative Residence + Agro-ForesT) (2022–23), a BIPOC and LGBTQIA+–led arts and ecology collective in Vermont (USA). Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in public collections including The Phillips Collection, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. A recipient of Pollock-Krasner and Rubys Grants, she has also served in public arts leadership roles, holding two terms on the Maryland State Arts Council (2017–2023) and the Washington Project for the Arts (2018-2025, DC), and currently sits on the board of Threewalls (IL), and serves as a trustee at The Phillips Collection (DC).
Paradise Labs is a team of makers, creators, and problem-solvers specializing in museum, zoo, aquarium exhibit design, as well as medical simulation assemblies and limited run manufacturing. With decades of experience, they craft immersive exhibits that inspire curiosity, spark wonder, and connect people with the natural world. Whether it’s building larger-than-life sculptures, crafting intricate habitats, or designing hands-on interactive experiences, Paradise Labs believe in the power of storytelling through design.
This event is open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University’s nondiscrimination policy.