Rachel Ara
Artist Statement and Images by Rachel Ara
This Much I’m Worth (the self-evaluating artwork) by Rachel Ara. Photo by Anise Gallery.
Artist Statement
Rachel Ara: ‘Reading Art History, I realised I was less critically engaged with the writings of Carl Andre than with the accusation that he pushed his wife, fellow artist Ana Mendieta, out of a skyscraper window. I’m interested in the conspiracy of silence, hidden agendas and their repercussions, especially in terms of the normalisation of violence against women in our culture’.
American Beauty (a Trump L’oeil) at The Barbican
Rachel Ara’s work American Beauty (a Trump L’oeil) is currently showing at the Barbican Centre, London, UK, May 24 – December 30, 2018.
[Image Right: American Beauty (a Trump L’oeil) by Rachel Ara. Photo courtesy of the artist. ]
About Rachel Ara
Rachel Ara (b. 1965, Jersey, Channel Islands) is a conceptual and data artist who explores the relationships between gender, technology and systems of power. She graduated with a Fine Art degree from Goldsmiths College, London, where she won the prestigious Burston award. As a multi-disciplinary artist, she has a diverse skillset acquired from working 25 years in the tech industry to being a trained cabinet maker and combines them to make unique and often surprising installations and sculptures. The works are nonconformist with a socio-political edge that often incorporates humour and irony with feminist & queer concerns. Rachel Ara currently lives and works in London.
In 2016 she won the Aesthetica Art Prize 2016 for This Much I’m Worth (the self-evaluating artwork). Pulling on her experiences as a computer system designer, the digital sculpture draws on data and complex algorithms to calculate its own value in real time. In 2018 she was featured on the cover of the FT Wealth for her monumental version of the sculpture This Much I’m Worth that she engineered and built incorporating over 80 pieces of neon and a homemade animation system made from recycled materials.
In 2018 Rachel Ara was made Artist in Residence at the V&A Museum in London responding to their data. She has also shown new works this year at the Whitechapel Gallery, This Much I’m Worth (Monumental Version); Barbican Centre, American Beauty, (a Trump L’oeil); Humber Street Gallery, The Ancestors, and the V&A, Transubstantiation of Knowledge.
Cocksure (Is anything ever what it seems?) by Rachel Ara. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Small Acts of Violence by Rachel Ara. Photo courtesy of the artist.