Eleanor Rodwell (b.1996) / Glasgow School of Art Graduate 2018
Our bodies are both constraints and homes; to nurture makes us vulnerable; the maternal is swollen in violence.
My practice centres around the body and its response to environment and emotional experience. I use this corporeality to explore personal anxieties, relationships with home, autonomy and the instinct to care. Work often spans tactile, intimate objects, bodily manifestations and large-scale fabric drawings. I am drawn to the meditative quality of immersive, automatic, strenuous processes (casting, drawing, printmaking) and the catharsis that is found both in what I produce or interactions I encourage. My drawings are regularly created blind, in an attempt to express the internal subconscious.
Ultimately, I am fascinated with translations, conflict,
mark-making as a form of thought and highlighting mutual experiences of vulnerability.
Norfolk
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
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
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
Workshop assistant and exhibition invigilator 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
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