Do You Like It Or Do You Love It?

Charlotte Shreeve chose a bold title to help steel her nerves for her first solo exhibit.

Opening tomorrow, it features about 40 portraits of women, each given a deliberately provocative, politically incorrect name. All are graphite drawings, some are “bedazzled with tiles or butterflies or rhinestones or flowers”.

“They’re all very different but they’re all very similar in terms of what I’m portraying and the use of colour and mixed media,” she said.

“I’m giving people no option but to like it or love it.”

The exhibit is a goal accomplished. On rediscovering her love of drawing last year, Ms Shreeve was inspired after she gave a Pecha Kucha talk: 2023: The Year I Got Back into Drawing.

“Almost immediately afterwards, I spoke to Nzingha Ming [the director of the Bermuda Society of Arts] and just signed up for a show. I had no idea what I was going to do, what I was going to put into the show. I had absolutely zero plans and it turned out I've got to where I am now with zero plans,” she laughed. “I've managed to pull together a collection of about 38 people.”

She had “always loved drawing faces”, so deciding on the subject matter came easily to Ms Shreeve.

Help came from a collection of images she had saved on Instagram. She was drawn to them because she “liked the look of them for whatever reason”.

“It could be a disco ball and I really liked the colour of it. Or it could be another artist’s piece of work I used as insight to give me an idea of what I can do with one of my pieces. Every time I finish a piece, I'll raid my art folder to find a picture that I'm particularly drawn to on that day, and then I'll go for it.

“And it's funny, I'll draw the picture and I won't know what I'm going to do to it. I've got this little art cupboard and it's just full of magic. It’s got flowers and rhinestones and gold leaf; it's just boxes and boxes of stuff. And I'll raid it. I’ll figure out what inspires me on that day and then they just get added to the picture.”

She believes her work is niche because she has yet to come across any art that resembles it.

“I don't see anyone else doing art like me so I think people want to see it. They’re all very strong women and I've given all my pictures sexist names: She Belongs in the Kitchen, Maneater … they've all got really derogatory names because I'm trying to kind of take the [meaning of the] name back, [to have people] realise, ‘Yeah, but look at her. She's beautiful.’”

The piece that makes reference to being in the kitchen shows a Black woman holding the world in her hands. It is a powerful display, Ms Shreeve feels.

“They've all got derogatory names but they all make sense when you actually see the picture,” she said.

Although she had committed to the show she did not put much effort into doing anything until she was made redundant and had more time on her hands.

“I probably really knuckled down doing the artwork when I was off work, between June and now. Some of them are 16 by 24 but then I've got bigger ones. Some of them took ten hours to do, other ones took between 30 and 40 hours,” she said.

“I had to hand glue beads on to these pictures. It’s a labour of love and it takes hours.”

Because she has ADHD, she thought the beading would be tedious and was surprised to discover that she actually enjoyed it.

“What I found is the beading and the thought process behind each picture and trying to figure out how I should use mixed media on each one is actually quite therapeutic,” the artist said.

“Over the weekend, I think I sat at the dining room table for six hours and didn't move. I was beading, I was gluing rhinestones and before I knew it, six, eight hours had gone by. So I'm finding it therapeutic but getting myself to actually sit down and start that process is where the mental gymnastics starts.”

The result is a “fun” collection that she thinks people will like.

“It's scary though, because it’s all going to go up in an art gallery and so many of my friends are going to come and check them out. Sitting there while people are staring at your artwork on a wall – something that takes hundreds and hundreds of hours to do – is a little raw.

“But it's exciting and I want my kids to be proud of me: ‘Mum wanted to do something and she went off and did it.’ I want them to understand if you’ve got dreams and you want to do an art show, or whatever, do it. Literally do it.”

• Do You Like It Or Do You Love It? opens tomorrow at the Bermuda Society of Arts and runs until December 10. Visitbsoa.bm