E.K. Buckley grew up outside of Chicago in Park Ridge. She graduated from the University of Kansas in Lawrence and later attended the Pallet & Chisel School of Fine Arts back in Chicago. She rented a studio in 1999 in Chicago's Flat Iron building where she connected with the artists that would lead to CHARCOLL [the chicago artists’ collective]. CHARCOLL [the chicago artists’ collective] was founded by E.K. Buckley & Chris Johnson in 2000 to centralize web presence and network DIY artists interested in showing outside of the conventional gallery scene. They produced back to back monthly shows in 2004 to spark interest in the growing Pilsen local artists’ movement and since have branched out to exhibit with their small group in Chicago and abroad.  

Buckley and Johnson founded the Chicago Artists' Collective in early 2000. CHARCOLL began with David Moskow, Jojo Baby, Sarah Beckstrom, Karen Gagich and other Flat Iron artists. Buckley found spaces and produced shows, while her partner Chris Johnson created this website to get their work online and promote the events. Buckley and Johnson ran it themselves until a large space opened up in the Chicago arts neighborhood, Pilsen.

In 2004 CHARCOLL ran back to back shows in the donated Pilsen warehouse space on Halsted's gallery stretch. CHARCOLL became a close collaboration led by Buckley and her husband, Chris Johnson with directors Zsofia Otvos, Clara Batton Smith and Melissa Kolbusz. These core artists produced shows that exhibited up to thirty artists and performers at a time, and they continued to work together through 2007. In 2007, Buckley moved to Brooklyn and handed CHARCOLL operations in Chicago to Zsofia Otvos while she organizes the fall exhibition for the group in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Although primarily an oil painter, she also works in charcoal, pastel, photography, music, video and creative writing. Heavily influenced by Francis Bacon, Jose Saramago, Egon Scheile, Willem De Kooning, Richard Mastroleonardo and David Lynch, Buckley believes art must tap into the personal images that lie in the collective unconscious. She describes much of her work as stained glass Windows in her imaginary cathedral or library of saints. Source: charcolldotcom