Rachel Gadsden United Kingdom

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Expressionist in approach, Rachel Gadsden creates solo exhibitions, performances and collaborative social engagement art projects with disabled, vulnerable and mainstream individuals and communities nationally and internationally, through painting, performance, digital film and animation, with the object of developing cross-cultural dialogues considering universal notions of humanity.

‘Gadsden is creating an artwork with frantic speed, fighting her own real-life fight against the dying of the light. In the act of painting, she tells us, she is "living in the second".’ Luke Jennings, The Guardian

Expressionist in approach, Rachel Gadsden creates solo exhibitions, performances and collaborative social engagement art projects with disabled, vulnerable and mainstream individuals and communities nationally and internationally, through painting, performance, digital film and animation, with the object of developing cross-cultural dialogues considering universal notions of humanity.

At the core of her practice are concerns as to how humankind comes to terms with mortality: by unearthing the unseen, making the invisible visible. Part of that process is about being open about impairment and working to empower others to find a voice with which to challenge stigma. Ultimately Gadsden’s work is underpinned by themes of fragility and resilience, a shared and positive sense of survival in the face of chronic health conditions, and the politics and mythologies surrounding disability.

Gadsden's work has been exhibited and presented throughout UK & Europe and in Australia, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Brazil, Colombia, Hong Kong, Jordan, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the USA. Her artworks are represented in private and major art collections including HM The Queen Royal Art Collection, UK Parliament, Mandela’s Walk to Freedom, SA, Fédération Internationale de Football Association, The National Paralympic Heritage Trust, and Hyundai. Gadsden has received major award commissions for 4 Paralympic Games, Beijing, London, Sochi and Brazil, and has undertaken 5 commissions for UK Parliament.

Gadsden is currently lead artist for a British Academy Funded Commission, Narratives of Displacement created and directed by Ethnographer Dr Yafa Shanneik and the University of Birmingham. Gadsden and Shanneik are collaborating with Iraqi and Syrian Refugee Women and their families who are sharing their challenging migration journeys, in Germany, UK and Jordan as part of the project.

In her current solo work Gadsden is reflecting upon physical & psychological issues of displacement, virus pandemics, immunology and the human instinct to remain ever hopeful.

Gadsden will be exhibiting as part of the Mayflower 400 Festival Events in Southampton throughout 2020-2021 https://mayflower400southampton.co.uk/events-and-workshops/rachel-gadsden/ Gadsden will also be presenting a solo exhibition for Bay Art Gallery Cardiff in April – May 2021.

Gadsden was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from, London South Bank University, 2016 for her work.