Fiona Rae RA
Born: 10 October 1963, Hong Kong
Elected RA: 28 May 2002
Category of Membership: Painter
Fiona Rae RA, 'The woman who can do self-expression will shine through all eternity', 2010. © the artist, courtesy Buchmann Galerie, Berlin. Fiona Rae's painting is known for its restless energy, humour and complexity. Rae has created a distinctive painterly language based on her own invention and imagination, as well as being inspired by influences and sources from a vast and disparate image bank that includes Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymous Bosch, Willem de Kooning and Gerhard Richter; comics such as Krazy Kat and Little Nemo; Japanese animé, graphic design and kitsch imagery. Her paintings are as much about the expressive possibilities of paint on canvas as they are about the excesses and uncertainties of our visual culture.
Rae studied at Croydon College of Art from 1983 to 1984 and completed a BA Hons in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College in 1987. She participated in 'Freeze', the group show organised by Damien Hirst in London’s Docklands, 1988, which helped launch a generation of artists who became known as 'YBAs' (Young British Artists). Rae was shortlisted for the Turner Prize at the Tate in 1991. She has exhibited in museums and galleries internationally and her work is held in prestigious public and private collections worldwide. Rae was appointed a Tate Artist Trustee between 2005 and 2009, and lives and works in London.
Solo shows include: Third Eye Centre (now Centre for Contemporary Art), Glasgow, 1990; Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland, 1992; Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, 1993-4; The British School at Rome, Italy, 1997; Carré d'Art - Musée d'art contemporain de Nîmes, France, 2002-3. Recently she has had one person exhibitions at Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, 2008; Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, 2009; The Pace Gallery, New York, 2010; Buchmann Galerie, Berlin, 2011.
Group shows include: 'The British Art Show 1990', McLellan Galleries, Glasgow; Leeds City Art Gallery; Hayward Gallery, London, 1990; 'Aperto, 44th Biennale di Venezia', Venice, 1990; 'Unbound', Hayward Gallery, London, 1994; 'Nuevas Abstracciones', Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 1996; 'Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection', Royal Academy of Arts, London; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1997-2000; 'Hybrids: International Contemporary Painting', Tate Liverpool, 2001; 'Painting Pictures: Painting and Media in the Digital Age', Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany, 2003; 'Pictograms: The Loneliness of Signs', Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany, 2006; 'Fiction@Love', Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, China, 2006 and 'Classified: Contemporary British Art from Tate Collection', Tate Britain, 2009; 'Babel', FRAC Auvergne, France, 2010.
Contact details for further information
Email membershipoffice@royalacademy.org.uk
www.fiona-rae.com
