Edinburgh Printmakers’ ground-floor gallery has been transformed into a hot-pink salon which feels alive and vibrant, even if you’re the only visitor occupying this space. There’s no awkward small talk inside the salon, as infectious laughter and thoughtful affirmations among friends pulls you into Christian Noelle Charles’ solo show.

The Glasgow-based artist, whose practice accentuates the value of self-love and self-worth as a Black woman, has immortalised five friends who are also practising artists in a new series of kaleidoscopic screen prints. These portraits celebrate a collective of Black women artists performing the act of getting ready. To enhance the portraits through movement, two TV screens play videos in which the cohort take turns to moisturise, wash and touch their faces and hair. In a culture where Audre Lorde’s pioneering philosophy for self-care has been buried under suffocating levels of commodification, these peaceful and political videos are soul-nourishing to watch. 

Keeping you company as you move around this exhibition, the recorded interviews which comprise a dynamic soundscape are perhaps the most compelling component. Punctuating the viewing experience with warmth, and imbuing the art with political significance, this soundscape reaffirms self-care as ‘an act of political warfare’ (in the words of Lorde). When Noelle Charles asks collaborator Cass Ezeji about her self-care routine, she responds by sharing an experience of not being able to access her own bathroom for several months due to mould and damp. Addressing such living conditions as a consequence of governmental neglect, Ezeji rejoins the roots of self-care with Black feminism. 

Christian Noelle Charles: WHAT A FEELING! | ACT 1, Edinburgh Printmakers, until 17 September.