Top 50 Charcoal Artists You Need to Know About (And Their Iconic Work)

Every few months, Art Post artists unite to create an original piece of artwork - celebrating iconic masterpieces and our wonderful city of Sheffield. Each piece created by the collective is showcased on the limited edition Sheffield Art Totes.

I am Andrea Solaja. When I was ten I lived in a bunker for several months while my country, Serbia, was being bombed. My sole source of relief to escape from the horrors of those days was imagining worlds and creating stories inside the light of the only candle I had. The shadows projected on the walls would turn into the shapes of the ever changing characters of my imagination, I can see my fingers weaving evanescent details which blended with the condensation and the cold. That light shone on an outer space which was too small for a child. I had to create one to become internal, immense. I hold my childhood and its dreams inside that small flame. I sealed the darkness I had inside with the wax, and with the wick I tied the memories of a life which was not going to be mine anymore. My art unfolds around the narration of that light. My paintings are symbionts of the game of contrasting light and dark which narrate without revealing, which drain my inner feelings on the canvas preventing the shapes from becoming obstacles.

In January 2020, I ruptured my Achilles tendon. Being immobilised and signed off work, I started to draw every day, and I haven't stopped since: it's now the reason I get out of bed in the morning. It might seem strange, even disgraceful, for a man in his late 30s to start pursuing an artistic pathway. An archetypal mid-life crisis. But there is nothing inherently bad about a crisis: Yes, there is danger and difficulty, but also, potentially, a turning point and a renewal. In terms of my artistic perspective, I am interested in urban sketching and illustration. My work aims to capture the liveliness of our environment, with a strong emphasis on play and more than a hint of anarchy.

I'm a mixed media artist now living in Nottingham, I have always painted and drawn ever since I can remember and always believed that I would eventually work in this field, but my career took me on a path working with children developing their self esteem and wellbeing which I loved and was also able to use my creativity in a more therapeutically direction. In 2016 myself and my husband was given the opportunity to live in Wisconsin USA for 5 years, during this time I rediscovered my love and need to create art for my own mental health. I draw inspirations from my travels, the colourful vistas of Americas National Parks, the vibrancy of cities like Toyko and San Francisco. I'm currently enjoying working with alcohol inks, which can produce such intense colours whilst maintaining a fluidity which can only be controlled up to a certain point, so you never fully know how it’s going to turn out - which is part of the fun! But I also enjoy other mediums, watercolours, acrylic and ink pads, no matter what my subjects are, whether its female nudes or landscapes, you can be sure that they are always colourful!

I create realistic art for a living because I like the challenge of it. In trying to do a subject justice as it stands, it’s very fulfilling when I get it right. I might alter the odd thing in an artistic rendition, but it’ll be subtle, and rare (if ever). The real and natural world is immensely interesting to me already, so I leave imagined alternatives to those more skilled in and appreciative of them. Nature covers a gamut of size, colour, personality and beauty I find should be worthy of anyone’s attention. It’s also constantly changing, largely for the worse, which is why 10% of all my wildlife sale profits go to selected wildlife charities.

Matthew Watts studied at West Surrey College of Art and Design and has worked as a graphic designer and artist since the late 1990’s. His work has been displayed in galleries in both Bath, Bristol and London. His paintings are primarily portraits and figurative pictures. Working in the highly diverse medium of oil, the aim is not to create a picture of a particular person, rather it explores the process of mark making, colour and the paint itself, in an endeavour to create an image that will stand on its own.  Often working from life or found images, these starting points are not transposed onto a surface but are used as a jumping off point. It is hoped that the qualities of the paint and mark making will create an energy that supplants attempts at likeness and realism. Ultimately it’s an attempt at going beyond an image that is demonstratively decorative but rather create a picture that is its own source of energy.

A self taught Traditional Artist, specialising in portraiture. Lisa has contributed to the Brooklyn Art Library's Sketchbook Project 2020/21 and exhibited her 1st collection at Brick Lane Gallery, London.

Scottish artist Liana Moran has exhibited her work in a range of exhibition venues and festivals since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2010. Liana’s work consists of large architectural drawings responding to the environment, structure and materials within cities around Scotland. Lots of mark making, large canvases and plenty of ink. She was shortlisted for The Derwent and Jerwood Drawing prize and exhibits widely. From the Royal Scottish Academy Edinburgh, Pall Mall Galleries London to the very local DOK in Leith. Liana’s work was recently included in ‘The Edinburgh Art Book’. She works from her studio in Leith.

Aaron Lock is a mixed media artist who creates figurative expressionist images focusing on themes such as identity, consciousness and the human condition.