Cherelle Sappleton is an award-winning British-Caribbean interdisciplinary artist based in Ramsgate (UK), working across collage, photography, sound and installation. Describing herself as ‘a cooperative and collection of organisms’, her practice is an ongoing investigation into the body's transformational capacity, as well as what it means to have a body in a world where the flux and potential of identity is bound by class, gender, race, and ability.

A trained Sound Therapist & Somatic Healer with a background in experimental theatre, she uses sound, music and movement to tune into heightened states- a process which directs and informs her creative practice. She turns away from the rational and allows her body to lead; In her own words, ‘The body is speaking all the time, sometimes more loudly than others’.

This approach opens up a personal reverence and appreciation for the body’s latent intelligence along with art’s capacity to heal, access emotional states and transform. In her practice, the body is an archive of deep wisdom and a portal to the collective unconscious. These expansive qualities are all channelled into Sappleton’s artworks, installations, music and performances, offering audiences opportunities to slow down, reflect and connect with aspects of the self that remain hidden, feel illusive or long dormant.  

Deeply connected to the pleasure politics of adrienne maree brown, Audre Lorde and deriving huge inspiration from Jennifer Christine Nash’s book, ‘ The Black Body in Ecstasy’, Sappleton’s practice is one imbedded in non-fixity, sensuality, play, resistance and kinship.

After earning an MA in Fine Art from the Central Saint Martins College of Arts in (2013), Sappleton was awarded the Denton’s Prize (2017). Her work has been exhibited both in the UK and internationally, with solo shows at Phoenix Gallery, Exeter and Sutton House, London. Group exhibitions include Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK; Hotel Michele, Margate and Summertime Gallery, New York amongst others. In addition to her exhibitions, Sappleton has been commissioned to create work for a variety of institutions and organizations, including Great Ormond Street Hospital, the National Trust, Hospital Rooms and the National Theatre. She has also completed several artist residencies, including the London Print Studio, Chisenhale Studios and the prestigious Florence Trust year-long artist residency. Sappleton's work is held in public and private collections, including the Soho House Art Collection. Her work was recently featured in Phaidon’s recent publication Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art (2023). She is also part of the Working Class Creatives Database.


If you'd like to support her creative practice, please donate via PayPal. All funds raised go towards materials, equipment and professional development.

  • ‘Looking at Sappleton’s collages, videos and sculptures, I feel as if I should be hearing music.'

    Karin Bareman- Curator & Academic, 2020

  • ‘Sappleton’s work reflects her ongoing concern with how to represent bodies as free and in flux, creating a subjective experience rather than a fixed notion of a body as an immovable object. In doing so, Sappleton hopes to also restore pleasure, playfulness and sensuality, and elicit ways of feeling good in one’s body.’

    Charlotte Jansen- Arts & Culture Journalist , Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art, Phaidon, 2023

  • 'It is via an inquisitive and wandering exploration she simultaneously explores ideas relating to performativity by appropriating, utilising and re-presenting the (feminine) body, creating an interplay between photography as a personal language of imagery and as a physical and material form.'

    Coeval magazine, 2015

  • 'Her images may appear in isolation or small groupings, such as in her series of small, framed collages, or else presented in combination with, or scanned, manipulated and printed onto, a variety of other materials and sculptural elements. These often embody decidedly tactile, physical and sensual qualities; silk, mirror, rubber, leather – materials that may speak of luxury, intimacy even fetishism.'

    Matt Burrows- Curator, Phoneix Gallery, 2020

Solo Exhibitions:
2020-Among Other Things, Phoenix Gallery, Exeter
2019- Semblance, Sutton House, London
2014 - Other, Wac Arts, London

Group Exhibitions:

Oct/Nov 2024- Give Away Your Relics, UCA Canterbury, Canterbury

Jul 2024- NOISE FOR NOW, Upstate Art Weekend, NY, USA
Nov - Dec 2022, Bunch, curated by Kavel Rafferty and Liminal Gallery, Hotel Michele, Margate, UK
Aug - Sept 2022, Getting Back to Normal - Utopia/Dystopia, East Bank, Queen Elizabeth Park, London, UK
June - Sept 2022, A Space For Healing, Giant, Bournemouth, UK
Dec 2021- Womxn of Colour Award, 198 Gallery, London, UK
Nov 2021-Darkness At Noon, APT Gallery, London, UK
Nov 2021- Hospital Rooms, Art + Psychiatric Care Exhibition, 30 Old Burlington Street, London, UK
Oct 2021- Open 2021, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK
Apr-May 2021 - Economy of Errors curated by Henry Hussey & Sophia Olver, OHSH Projects, London, UK
Sept 2020 - Fair Vanity curated by Lisa Slominski, Summertime Gallery, Brooklyn, USA
Oct/Nov 2019 -Night Garden, YngSpc online exhibition curated by Angeliki Kim Jonsson (Dynamisk) and Kate Mothes (Young Space)
Aug 2019 - We Sing The Body Electric, Gallery 46, London, UK
Mar 2019 - A Room Of One's Own, Koppel Project, Poland St, Soho, London, UK
Jun/ Jul 2018- Summer Open, The Florence Trust, London
Jun 2018- Goldbourne Gallery, London, UK
Feb 2018- Winter Open, The Florence Trust, London, UK
October 2017-Unfold Space, Church Street, London, UK
Feb 2017- 'Bright Young Tings', Lyttleton Lounge, National Theatre, London, UK
Oct 2016- Showcase (online), Photoworks, Brighton, UK

Performances:

Jun 2025- Still Waters, TBC, Gravesend
May 2025- Still Waters, TBC, Whistable
Jan 2025- London Art Fair, London
Jan 2025- Turner Contemporary Lates, Margate
Oct 2024- Equinox, Bar Nothing, Margate
Mar 2024- Big Mars Energy, Quench, Margate
Oct 2023- Barrowful x Barrow Music, FON, Barrow-In-Furness

Residencies/ Programmes:
Jun 2023-Feb 2024- Constellations, UPProjects & Flat Time House
Sept 2023- Barrowful x Barrow Music, Barrow-In-Furness
Mar 2019- Shortlisted for the Stuart Hall Foundation Residency
Feb - Jul 2019- London Print Studio Development Residency
Aug 2017- Aug 2018-The Florence Trust, London
Sept 2017- Chisenhale- Studio4, London
Jan 2017- Space4__, London
Sept 2015- Guest Projects (Yinka Shonibare Studios), London
Sept-Oct 2014- Wac Arts, London

Awards/Prizes/Commissions:

2025-2026 - AEE x Freelands Foundation Commission- ‘How do we cultivate spaces for intercultural and intersectoral dialogue?’
2024-2025 - Cement Fields Commission- Still Waters w/ Tom Morris
2023- Shortlisted for Photoworks x Ampersand Fellowship
2022- Gal-Dem magazine x V&A Museum, East Bank Commission
2021-2022 Great Ormond Street Hospital COVID Commemoration Commission
2020/ 2021- Hospital Rooms- PICU Titan Ward Commission
2019- South London Gallery- Big Family Press Commission
2019- National Trust Summer Exhibition Commission at Sutton House
2018- Winner of the Denton's Prize for emerging artists
2017/2018- Oppenheim Downes Trust
2017-Adidas UK, EQT 2017
2017- National Theatre Archive Commission
2016- Shortlisted for SPILL Festival National Platform
2016- Shortlisted for Photoworks Annual 23
2015- Y Foundation
2014- Runner up for the Secret Art Prize, Curious Duke Gallery,
2013- Shortlisted for Helen Scott Lidgett Studio award, associated with Acme Studios
2011/2012- South Square Trust Scholarship
2011/2012- South Square Trust Scholarship
2011/2012- Shortlisted for The Red Mansion Prize
2010- Shortlisted for 10 Gales Prize

Selected Press/ Publications:


2023- Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art published by Phaidon
2018- Bricks Magazine 'Brown Girls in an Art World’ by Ellen Atlanta
2014- Vagina Dentata, edited by Make8elieve & published by Les editions du Petit O
2013- Harper’s Bazaar China, December issue
2013- NeverLazy Magazine Winter issue, December
2013- Inhale Mag
2013- Trendland.com
2013- The Guardian online

Education:


2013- MA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins
2011- Post Graduate Diploma, Byam Shaw School of Art
2006- BA Hons Creative Arts, Bath Spa School of Art


Several works are housed in public and private collections including the Soho House art collection.