A 24-year-old from Diss achieved social media stardom overnight with a striking piece of art that has caught the attention of millions around the world.
Charlotte Miller is a talented painter who created a piece called ‘Claiming’ that challenged a phenomenon known as manspreading.
She studied at University Studies at West Suffolk College and secured an Art Practice degree in 2023. (She previously studied on an art course at West Suffolk College).
Tutors recently reached out to her to ask if she would like to take part in an exhibition they were organising within the iconic Ickworth House in Horringer.
The showcase explored themes of tolerance, resistance, and building bridges through visual and conceptual responses. Charlotte decided to paint a reflection on a 21st century topic in the style of the 18th century paintings.
The exhibition took place in April and her work impressed employees at the National Trust who extended the stay of the painting, and it now hangs next to greats such as Vigée Le Brun, Hogarth and Titian in the Smoking Room at Ickworth.
(The smoking room was historically a room for men to gather away from women).
On her painting, Charlotte said: “It is a non-violent approach to calling out every day behaviours of men against women. I wanted to put forward a subverted female-centred depiction of the phenomenon known as ‘manspreading’ – a term coined to describe men who spread their legs widely on public transport and encroach on the personal space of others.
“With the brief from National Trust, there was a bit where it said about pushing back, but without using violence. I thought of literally pushing back, and then I thought of manspreading.”
She continued: “I go to London quite a lot and sit on the tubes and just watch it. If I wanted to make myself comfortable like that, it would look like a really big statement. I just thought if it’s flipped, it will just show that is what they do. If I do it, it’s not okay.”
After settling on her theme, Charlotte set to work modelling the various poses she wanted to convey her message: “I knew I wanted the men to look uncomfortable, and then the woman in the middle to be sort of spreading her legs a bit. I recorded a video and just screenshotted the poses that I thought worked best together.”
Overall, the project took her two months to complete. She documented the process of creating ‘Claiming’ on Instagram and TikTok, but initially received little engagement with her posts.
On the day of the exhibition, she took videos and pictures of her painting and then posted them the following day. She explains, “I then went to work, so I wasn’t really on my phone. I came home and it had gotten very popular very quickly. And then on the Monday, it had really blown up. My posts quickly amassed over sixteen million views on various social media channels.”
But the social media attention was just part of Charlotte’s success. Due to the popularity of her posts, she began to receive requests for prints of the piece from all over the world. With no experience of selling online, she was unsure where to begin to respond to the immense demand.
Fortunately, her degree came in handy. She said, “I thought back to university, and there was a module called ‘Commercial Creation’, and we had to make an art fair. It was all about selling your art, photographing your art, pricing it, making a website. So, I dug back into my brain to then and made a website with Shopify, which I’d never used before.”
Charlotte started with pre-orders of A4 and A3 prints of ‘Claiming’, before demand got so high that she added A2 and A1 sizes.
The piece has sparked conversations and inspired an overwhelming response from its audience, with countless women reaching out to Charlotte privately to share their stories and experiences. The global reactions to her art has left Charlotte feeling ‘really emotional’.
She said: “I’ve had a women’s rape survivor charity reach out to me to include my piece in their exhibition, I’ve had a lot of individual women messaging me just telling me how my painting has made them feel and how it’s actually helped them feel more confident.
“I don’t really know how to respond to them. All I’ve been able to do is just literally say thank you, and then they’ll reply to me and then they’ll say “No, thank you for painting it. I just can’t get my head around that something I painted in my living room is having that kind of impact from all over the world.”
Not everyone embraced the piece’s message in the same way, and Charlotte received some mixed reactions.
After the posts went viral, Charlotte’s old tutor (Joel Millerchip) from the University also reached out. He had one simple piece of advice: “Phone down, brush up. Sit in the positive, drown out all the negative.”
Charlotte is now putting her energy into being a full-time artist. Following her viral stardom, she quit her jobs in hospitality and childcare to pursue art and continue creating and selling products.
She said, “I know what I need to do to keep that going. There’s lots of other things that I can think of that would be a nice commentary on what we have to deal with. I’d like to thank my family and friends for their support – as well as the college, university and National Trust.”
Glenn Pickering – Course Leader of Art Practice at University Studies at West Suffolk College, said: “I’m so proud of all our students who took part in the exhibition at Ickworth. Charlotte’s story demonstrates how the knowledge and skills our students leave with, can help them to make art with serious impact.”
The painting will be on display at Ickworth Park until the end of July.
