Charlotte Sorapure was born in Bournemouth, Dorset, on 15 July 1968, the third of four children of Dr John Sorapure, a general practitioner, and his wife, Priscilla (née Davis), a painter and teacher.
Her mother’s practice as an artist made her aware of drawing and watercolour from an early age, and she began to develop an interest in painting during her teens. At the age of 16, she went with her mother to life drawing classes taught by Sam Rabin at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and Design, and it was there that she studied for her Foundation Diploma (1987-88). The course that she initially followed was Spatial Design, which included some life drawing with John England, who helped her to understand, and gain a fascination for pictorial structure. As a result, she changed to the Fine Art Foundation. While at Bournemouth, she first met her future husband, Saied Dai.
In 1988, Charlotte moved to Cheltenham to take a degree in Fine Art at Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Art and Technology (1988-91). Her teachers included the art historian, Alan Ford, who was the first person to buy a painting from her. She produced some abstract paintings during this period, but felt that they remained purely decorative, and found abstraction to be insufficiently sustaining.
In 1992, Charlotte began a three-year course at the Royal Academy Schools, in London, which resulted in a Post Graduate Diploma in Painting. At the time, drawing remained an essential ethos at the Schools, and was particularly promoted by Norman Blamey and Roderic Barrett, both of whom made an indelible impression on Charlotte.
Beyond her teachers, Charlotte has found inspiration in a wide range of artists, including those of the early Italian Renaissance (Giotto, Masolino, Gozzoli, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio), twentieth-century Britain (Gwen John, Stanley Spencer, Winifred Knights, Richard Eurich) and Oriental art. While at the RA Schools, she won the Richard Ford Award, and this gave her the opportunity to study in Madrid, where she came to fully appreciate the work of El Greco, Velasquez, Zurbaran and Goya, and so assimilate the dark tonalities that are central to the Hispanic visual tradition.
Charlotte was a prize winner of both the Royal Academy Schools Premiums and the Nat West Awards Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. As a student, she was also twice awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant (1991 and 1993) and received a Project Bursary from the Royal West of England Academy (1994).
Charlotte began her career while she and Saied Dai were living in Blackheath, in Southeast London, and her early work included landscapes of Greenwich and Canary Wharf. She considers her early years as an artist to have been something of a ‘slow burn’, but, in addition to teaching part-time at Eastbourne and becoming head of art at a private international school, she contributed to exhibitions in London, including the BP Portrait Award Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters at the Mall Galleries, and the Hunting Art Prize Exhibition at the Royal College of Art.
In 2002, Charlotte married Saied Dai in Bath, Somerset, and they settled in Upper Swainswick, to the north of the city. She soon contributed locally to the Holburne Dukes Portrait Prize Exhibition, held at the Holburne Museum, Bath. She also exhibited with the Royal West of England Academy, in Bristol.
From that time, Charlotte has exhibited regularly at the New English Art Club. She was made a member in 2007, and has been awarded the Cecile Jospe Prize (2008), the Bill Paterson Memorial Award (2009) and the Szuzsi Roboz Prize (2016).
Charlotte was included in ‘Three Women Artists’ at Petley Fine Art, London (2008), and has since held solo shows at the Quest Gallery, Bath (2010), Messum’s, London (2012) and the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath (2013), and joint shows with Saied Dai at the Brian Sinfield Gallery, Burford (2017 and 2019).
Her many contributions to mixed shows have resulted in some major prizes, including the Odin Prize, awarded by the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (2010), and the Holburne Portrait Prize, awarded by the Holburne Museum, Bath (2012). The last of these has been a particular highlight of her career, leading as it did to a commission to paint the photographer, Don McCullin. The resulting portrait was included in the exhibition, ‘The Observer Observed’, mounted by the Holburne in 2015. During her career, she has responded to a number of other portrait commissions.
In 2012, Charlotte contributed the article, ‘Life Drawing’, to the magazine, Artists & Illustrators, in March 2012.
Charlotte teaches drawing at Bath Artists’ Studios.
Further reading:
Martha Alexander, ‘A Touch of Grace’, Artists & Illustrators, April 2013;
Oliver Lange, ‘The Mystery Within’, The Artist, August 2012
