Charlotte Saylor
Lecturer
Contact
Bio
Charlotte Saylor (she/her) is a Chicago-based artist whose practice involves collecting, composing, and painting. She forages for discarded objects such as cardboard or VHS tapes, arranging them in unexpected ways while still allowing for their previous forms to linger. The color, texture, and rhythm of the paint—whether it’s oil, acrylic, casein, or encaustic—recontextualize these objects, framing and holding them with care.
Saylor grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, and graduated from the University of California, Davis, in 2019 with a BA in Art Studio. In 2020, she moved to Florence, Italy, for an artist residency at the Santa Reparata International School of Art, where she began experimenting with unconventional painting materials such as wine and olive oil. This experimental approach continued and accelerated in her practice at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received her MFA in the Painting and Drawing department in May 2025.
Her artwork has been exhibited at EXPO Chicago, Secrist Beach Gallery, the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, Circle Contemporary, Patient Info, Ivory Gate Gallery, Purple Window Gallery, ARC Gallery, .liminal.projects., Art City, Union Street Gallery, Howling Pages, the Dittmar Memorial Gallery at Northwestern University, and SAIC Galleries. She also co-curated Synchronicities with Isaac Armendariz at Ivory Gate Gallery, featuring artwork by Jessica Jackson Hutchins and Ayanah Moor, among others. Saylor’s work is published in Secrist Beach’s Masterclass Exhibition Catalogue, which includes essays by exhibition co-curator Lisa Wainwright and SAIC professor Michelle Grabner.
Exhibitions
Material Process, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, Online Exhibition, 2025; Perennial Hug, Circle Contemporary, Chicago, IL, 2025; Synchronicities, Ivory Gate Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2025; Master Class: Inside the Last American Museum School with SAIC Painting Alumni, SECRIST | BEACH, Chicago, IL, 2025; EXPO Chicago, SECRIST | BEACH, Chicago, IL, 2025; Tikkun Olam, Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2025; Juicy, Purple Window Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2025; Flags for the Apocalypse, .liminal.projects., Chicago, IL, 2025; Graduate Exhibition One, SAIC Galleries, Chicago, IL, 2025; Metamorphosis: The Art of Transformation, Dittmar Memorial Gallery at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 2025; The Pamphlet Show II, Patient Info, Chicago, IL, 2025; Stream of Consciousness, Solo Exhibition, Art City, Chicago, IL, 2024; Remembrances, Union Street Gallery, Chicago Heights, IL, 2024; Bio-Constellation, SAIC, Chicago, IL, 2024; Small Stuff III, SAIC, Chicago, IL, 2024; Beneath the Surface: Spirituality in Art, ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2024; Small Stuff II, Howling Pages, Chicago, IL, 2024; Pictures (of Nothing), SAIC, Chicago, IL, 2023; bonfire of the vanities, SAIC, Chicago, IL, 2023; Small Stuff, SAIC Open Studios, Chicago, IL, 2023; Works on Paper, SAIC, Chicago, IL, 2023; Post-Baccalaureate Annual, SAIC Galleries, Chicago, IL, 2023; Senior Show, The Basement Gallery, Davis, CA, 2019
Work
Charlotte Saylor, Houseboat, 2024. Oil and molding paste on stretched canvas, masking fluid and acrylic on loose canvas, encaustic on wood, paintbrushes, wire, yarn, string, netting, pins, a needle, twine, eucalyptus, bark, sticks, and a shell.
Charlotte Saylor, Permission, 2024. Pointe shoe, high heel, ink on paper, and a pin.
Charlotte Saylor, It's a Pink Piece, 2023. Acrylic, graphite and resin on cardboard, sticks, burlap, zipper, oil on fabric, twine, and a shell.
Charlotte Saylor, Envelope Poem, 2024. Handmade paper, photographs, a button, pins, ink, and charcoal on canvas.
Charlotte Saylor, Split Sky, 2025. Oil paint on VHS tapes.
Charlotte Saylor, Blue Tape, 2024. Oil paint on stick and tinfoil wrapped around a VHS tape.