My Charleston

Featuring a visual narration by Marie Carladous

Exhibit dates: June 1 – July 7, 2018

My Charleston is a visual narration of a vision of a traveler. Picturing the city of Charleston at first as an outsider, then as a local – foreigner, now as a French Charlestonian, the artist’s perspective on these now familiar landscapes are reimagined through photography.

All of the photographs represented in ‘MyCharleston’ were taken in between 2012 and 2018, with the same Olympus that was given to the artist almost twenty years ago yet each image was developed within the past year. The photographer was revisiting these familiar images with new experiences and in a new light. Each photo is hand colored, merging the artistic mediums of painting and darkroom photography creating a balanced presentation of both forms of art.

About the Artist | Marie Carladous

Marie Carladous was born in 1991 in Nice, France. Her interest in film photography started at a very young age through her grandmother, who was very present in Marie’s life since the death of her father, and was constantly showing her old photographs of friends, family, and traveling. Marie was amazed by those old photographs and how they were all so well preserved.

Her passion for film photography further expanded in 2001 when Marie’s grandfather gave her his old cameras, an Olympus OM-1 and a Rolleiflex. In 2010, while Marie was studying Tourism Management in college, she discovered that both cameras were actually working and this created a turning point in her life.

Marie was about to transfer to the College of Charleston and she realized it was her chance to pursue a career in something she had always loved, photography. As a result, she switched majors as a Junior, and acquired a Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts in 2013. Since then, Marie has been a freelance photographer, as well as a Darkroom member at the Redux Contemporary Art Center, where she processes all film and paper herself.

In 2018, she finally decided to give her art her full attention. She launched her own business, Marie Carladous Art, and is now proud to be a full time film photographer.

About the Curator | Gret Mackintosh

Born and raised in Burlington, NC, Gret Mackintosh’s earliest memories involve drawing and painting animals, which has led to a lifelong career in the art and design world. After initially entering into the College of Design at North Carolina State University as a Graphic Design major, she quickly realized that her heart remained in the fine arts and switched to a double major in Art & Design and Landscape Architecture. After graduation, she moved to Charleston, South Carolina to begin her career as a landscape architect, while continuing to pursue painting as a passion. Gret’s extensive commission work as an animal portrait artist spurred from her obsessive drawing and painting of her own spotted canine muse, Louie. She primarily paints using acrylics, but also delves into mixed mediums such as pencil, markers, gouache, and watercolors. She is fascinated by nature, and attempts to balance the dichotomy of realism and abstraction in her paintings by highlighting realistic details through bold color choices such as painting Zebra’s stripes blue. Her constantly evolving view of the natural world guides and inspires her work on a daily basis.

Read about it in this article by the Charleston City Paper!