Charlotte Ka is a child of the Great Migration. Her family moved to Crestas Terrace in the hills of Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh to work in the Steel Mills. Both her father and grandfather worked in the caustic environment of the mills. Her mother was a beautician.
In the 1960s she left her small village for New York City to study art at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. She says, “New York was my home during the Black Revolution of the 60’s and I was inspired by that period of defiance, “Black Power” and the adoption of the culture of the Motherland, Africa. I totally immersed myself in a new lifestyle that included my African American and African heritages.“
She was inspired profoundly by three teachers at Cooper Union: Hannes Beckmann for enriching her color sense with the intensive color studies of Josef Albers and Johannes Itten; Professor Robert Gwathmey for the importance of social advocacy and experimentation ; Robert Blackburn for his profound knowledge of the print process and his love of humanity. She, was during this time a member of the “Where We At” artist collective and gained inspiration from the profound creativity and influences of those powerful Black Women Artists.
Charlotte Ka has been able to develop paintings that represent a culmination of her experiences—an accretion of her associated studies, at Carnegie Mellon University, at the Maryland Institute College of Art, in printmaking, at the Corning Glass Museum, and travel to Africa. She was one of the FESTAC artists who exhibited in Lagos, Nigeria. These experiences have forged into an authentic style of her own. Her paintings have a brilliance of color, tactile qualities, and radiance with a determined and precise resolution.
In the 1960s she left her small village for New York City to study art at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. She says, “New York was my home during the Black Revolution of the 60’s and I was inspired by that period of defiance, “Black Power” and the adoption of the culture of the Motherland, Africa. I totally immersed myself in a new lifestyle that included my African American and African heritages.“
She was inspired profoundly by three teachers at Cooper Union: Hannes Beckmann for enriching her color sense with the intensive color studies of Josef Albers and Johannes Itten; Professor Robert Gwathmey for the importance of social advocacy and experimentation ; Robert Blackburn for his profound knowledge of the print process and his love of humanity. She, was during this time a member of the “Where We At” artist collective and gained inspiration from the profound creativity and influences of those powerful Black Women Artists.
Charlotte Ka has been able to develop paintings that represent a culmination of her experiences—an accretion of her associated studies, at Carnegie Mellon University, at the Maryland Institute College of Art, in printmaking, at the Corning Glass Museum, and travel to Africa. She was one of the FESTAC artists who exhibited in Lagos, Nigeria. These experiences have forged into an authentic style of her own. Her paintings have a brilliance of color, tactile qualities, and radiance with a determined and precise resolution.