Eleanor Rodwell (b.1996) / Glasgow School of Art Graduate 2018
Eleanor is a Suffolk-based multi-disciplinary artist, whose practice is rooted in mark-making, the landscape and translating emotional experience. She studied first at Leeds College of Art, before graduating with a BA in Fine Art from The Glasgow School of Art in 2018. Her mediums span drawing, painting, sculpture and metal casting. In recent years, she has completed residencies in Catalonia, Norway and Portugal, and last spring spent three months in residence at the studios and estate of Sir Antony Gormley, in North Norfolk. She has exhibited both internationally and within the UK, with three solo shows since 2021. With broad experiences in curation, leading creative workshops and working as a bronze foundry assistant, she is now a studio member of the Suffolk artist co-operative Asylum Studios.
'My practice has always been driven by drawing, emotional experience and the body. Over the last 3 years, this has shifted to encompass the landscape, now underpinning much of my work. I’m endlessly interested by where I fit into wildness, the tandem between emotional and external landscapes, and how others exist within rurality. Considering landscape as a catalyst for self-exploration, my process consists of walking to gather images, forms and observations. These collected and remembered are then reconfigured through semi-automatic drawing and sculpture, often growing into developed paintings and bodies of casts.'
EDUCATION
(2015 - 2018) The Glasgow School of Art
BA Hons Degree in Sculpture and Environmental Art
(2014 - 2015) Leeds College of Art
Foundation in Art and Design
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
November - December 2024, ‘Miniatures Challenge’, Canal Boat Contemporary, London.
November - December 2024, ‘Annual Open 2024’, Southwark Park Galleries, London.
August 2024, ‘Scrubland’, Butley Mills Studios, Suffolk.
July - September 2024, ‘The Summer Project’, The Cut, Suffolk.
May - August 2024, ‘Works on Paper 6’, Blue Shop Cottage, online.
December 2023 - February 2023; 'Light & Form', The Bank Art Centre, Eye.
August 2023; 'Unreliable Progress', The Shoe Factory Social Club, Norwich.
June 2023; 'The Assembly House Summer Open', The Assembly House, Norwich.
May 2023;'#mybodyinmyhands', currently virtual, with a physical exhibition at SV John Street Gallery, Stroud.
March 2023; 'An Accumulation of Being' solo show, Asylum Studios, Rendlesham.
March 2023; 'Hysteria', New House Art Space, Guildford.
March 2023; 'Unconsumed', The Shoe Factory Social Club, Norwich.
January 2023; 'Kunst og suppe' residency exhibition and talk, Fossekleiva Kultursenter, Berger.
November 2022; 'TBA 007: CARNIVAL', The Undercroft, Norwich.
November 2022; 'Pop-up Slop', The Long Gallery, Newcastle University, Newcastle.
November 2022; 'Wrapped up, deep dust' solo show, Oneuppergoat Gallery, Norwich.
September 2021, 'Uninhabited' solo show, OUTPOST studios, Norwich.
September 2019, 'I Could Be You', De Liceiras, Porto.
January 2019, ‘A Hard Place and A Rock’, New Glasgow Society, Glasgow.
November 2018, ‘Rooted’, Where People Sleep, Glasgow.
June 2018, ‘Degree Show’, The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow.
February 2018, 'It Lies There, Quite Close', The Art School, Glasgow.
October 2017, 'Sculptors Paint Too', The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow.
March 2017, 'To Let: A Collective', Rogart Street Campus, Glasgow.
May 2016, '25% Extra', Laurieston Arches, Glasgow.
May 2015, 'Going Going Gone', Leeds College of Art, Leeds.
RESIDENCIES
September 2024: Artist in Residence, Tre Donne Lavender, Umbria, Italy.
July 2024: Artist in Residence, The Summer Project, The Cut, Suffolk.
April - July 2023: Artist in Residence, High House Studios, Norfolk.
March 2023: Artist in Residence, The Lemonade Press, Bristol.
February 2023: Artist in Residence, Asylum Studios, Suffolk.
January 2023: Artist in Residence, Fossekleiva Kultursenter, Berger, Norway.
June 2022: Artist in Residence, Cel Del Nord, Oristà, Spain.
September 2021: Artist in Residence, OUTPOST, Norwich.
September 2019: Artist in Residence, DE LICEIRAS 18, Porto, Portugal.
August 2019: Artist in Residence, Caravanserai programme, Cambridge Art Works, Cambridge.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Lead artist and creative assistant for the Brave Art Ipswich sessions, a creative workshop programme for adults with disabilities and learning difficulties, run by the arts charity Suffolk ArtLink. Also, from January 2025, co-lead artist for Curious Minds, a socially prescribed creative programme to support people with chronic health conditions and ill mental health.
December 2023 - present.
Workshop leader, invigilator and casual administration assistant at The Art Station, an arts charity that works with community groups and local artists to offer a dynamic creative activity programmes.
March 2023 - present.
Casting assistant at sculptor Brian Alabaster's studio and bronze foundry. Skills included silicone and fibre-glass mould-making, lost-wax casting, investment plaster mould-making, woodwork, detailed bronze finishing metalwork and patination.
October 2021 - December 2022.
Tutoring assistant at Project Ability, an arts organisation offering studio space and workshops for adults with disabilities and lived experience of ill mental health. May 2019.
AWARDS
Norfolk County Council Arts Project Fund Grant Recipient, 2024
NCAS Small Grants Programme Recipient (Norfolk Contemporary Art Society), 2023
The Collector's Bursary Award from First Site Gallery, 2023.
The East Anglia Art Fund Project Grant, 2022.
PRESS/PUBLICATIONS
Interviewed as a co-organiser for Unconsumed group show, EDP, 2023
Featured in 'Issue 23: Love, Loss and Indifference', Haus-A-Rest zine, 2023
Featured in/interviewed for 'Drawings - Special Edition', Collect Art magazine, 2023
AiR at Cel Del Nord interview with Odette Brady, 2022
'Uninhabited' solo show review, Concrete, 2021
Awarded ‘Top Story of 2018’, The Graduate Mag, 2019
'It Lies There, Quite Close' publication, Eleanor Rodwell, 2019
Dissertation: ‘Shadows or monsters? The anxious condition; The Weird and Eerie phenomenon.’ Published by The Glasgow School of Art, 2018.
Featured in ‘Peachfuzz' zine, Peaches Publishing, 2016