FIONA RAE

- Iwona Blazwick in  "Il Faut Cultiver Notre Jardin: Fiona Rae and Iwona Blazwick"

"There is an anxiety or a sense of foreboding or loss. Then there’s life, the phenomenal world that we observe around us. And then there are associations, memories, ideas about what has to happen next—some are pragmatic and others are reveries, fantasies. I think this painting is an extraordinary illustration of consciousness. It's linguistic and it's pictorial, but it also has mood and emotion."

 

- Iwona Blazwick in "Il Faut Cultiver Notre Jardin: Fiona Rae and Iwona Blazwick"

"In recent months, Rae has made cityscapes, signage, wormholes, and flora. In her stories, flat interweaving staccato forms give way to three dimensions of depth and eruption, and then playfully—in a gotcha! hat tip—level themselves back down to the surface. If you look at her paintings from one reasonable angle, as though you are positioned from above, you view the God’s-eye schematics of reawakening—cities the roadways and park life glittering in the morning sun. From another angle, you are on the ground with her figures, looking out at them as they order and re-order themselves like wry and buzzing characters in an opening Stephen Sondheim number: We have a big day! We’re on our way! Oh, wait: Look at that bird! That sign! That tree!"

 - Christina Rees in "I've Seen Things You People Wouldn't Believe: Fiona Rae in 2022"

Fiona Rae (b. 1963, Hong Kong) studied at Croydon College of Art and received her Bachelor of Arts from Goldsmiths College in London. In 1988, Rae, along with what would be the Young British Artists, participated in the seminal exhibition ‘Freeze,’ at Surrey Docks. Rae exhibited at the 44th Venice Biennale in 1990 and was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1991. In 2002, the artist was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where she subsequently held a Professorship in Painting from 2011 to 2015.

Over an illustrious career spanning more than three decades, Rae’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Buchmann Galerie, Berlin, Germany; Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France; Centre d’Art La Malmaison, Cannes, France; Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, France; Hakgojae Cheongdam, Seoul, South Korea; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, United Kingdom; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland; Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, United Kingdom; Pace Gallery, New York, NY; Saatchi Gallery, London, United Kingdom, and Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, United Kingdom, among others.

Rae has been included in group exhibitions at numerous international institutions such as the Albertina Modern, Vienna, Austria; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; CentroCentro, Madrid, Spain; FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France; Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China; Serpentine Galleries, London, United Kingdom; Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom, and Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

Rae’s work may be found in the collections of  The Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France; Fond National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France; Government Art Collection, United Kingdom; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg; Tate Collection, London, United Kingdom, and elsewhere.

The artist lives and works in London, United Kingdom.