Artist and model Charlotte Rose sits down with Mission to talk pop-art, consumerism and the benefits of forging your own persona.
After quitting her smoking habit amid a bout of lockdown boredom, creative writing grad and model, Charlotte Rose took to the canvas. What started as simple paintings of familiar, everyday cigarette boxes quickly snowballed into what would eventually become her first artistic epiphany.
While painting packs of Marlboros, Rose began to draw parallels between the themes of the classic Shakespeare plays she had studied and the machiavellian techniques of today’s biggest tobacco companies – ‘there are all these interesting parallels between themes in Shakespeare – like Macbeth’s themes of mortality and greed, that echoed the idea of these tobacco companies becoming the kings of industry’ Rose explained.
These analogies lead to her first show, ‘The Shakespeare Tobacco Company’ (2023), a tongue in cheek exhibition featuring paintings of iconic cigarette boxes with Shakespearian twists, using word play and puns to satirize the sinister marketing of tobacco.
The Macbeth box read ‘a dagger of the mind’ taking Macbeth’s famous monologue in which he was plagued with guilt, reframing it in an exploration of addiction. Another box took the warring houses of Romeo and Juliet, plastering the name ‘Capulet’ on the front to symbolize the devotion and allegiance many have to their choice cigarette.
The cigarette boxes and her earlier works, in a typical pop-art fashion, take this idea of familiar, everyday branding to hold a mirror to our modern consumerist values, but, undoubtedly, one of the most interesting yet overlooked facets of her work is the role her own image plays within her artistic universe.
“Instagram is a tool for marketing and that works really well with my art – my art is all about branding.”
While many artists shy away from the spotlight Rose welcomes it, seeing her status as model or influencer as just another element of her artwork – almost like a performance piece. “Instagram is a tool for marketing and that works really well with my art – my art is all about branding; all these brands that I paint and work with, looking at the lies that they told, or the stories or narratives they use to promote the product – using that maxim, and appropriating it to myself.”
Inspired by Warhol-ian ideas of the celebrity as a brand, Rose uses her Instagram account and online presence to create a character out of herself. “Warhol said that in the future, everybody would have their 15 minutes of fame, and right now we are living in that future with Instagram.” She told me, “Warhol would have absolutely loved Instagram, would have loved the influencer and found that so fascinating. I am just taking that idea of influencer, model, that Warhol-ian idea of celebrity and just running with it, almost tying it into the art.”
Her more recent “Marmite” piece is a perfect example – utilizing the iconic pop-arty motif of repeated patterns of packaging, then twisting them to create witty and self-referential artworks. The Marmite piece featured intricately drawn Marmite jars, each label baring and positive and a negative comment from her Instagram, echoing a running theme in Rose’s work of using her humor and wit to make a statement, without ever preaching or falling into the trap of pessimism.
“I think I hide behind this character of Charlotte Rose, that’s this really performing, brave, confident, sexy thing. I am not that in real life.”
But though her art, her story and her online presence create an image of an almost fearlessness– coming from nowhere to exhibit her work; laughing in the face of her trolls by reframing her harsher criticism and utilizing her sexy online image to promote her bold artworks, Rose maintains that her reality is very different, “I think I hide behind this character of Charlotte Rose, that’s this really performing, brave, confident, sexy thing. I am not that in real life. I am very insecure, I am very nerdy. But I find it is an interesting thing to play with and hide behind.”
The duality of Charlotte Rose stands as evidence of the power of brand and marketing, but unlike many typical influencers of today, this is not something that Rose attempts to hide, instead pushing her audience to be ‘in on the joke’ with her, poking fun not just at the way of our consumerist world but also at herself and the role she chooses to play within it.
All images courtesy of Charlotte Rose.
