My work incorporates installation, sculpture, performance, video and more recently photographic techniques. A number of pieces reflect a direct response to the context for which they were made.
Two preoccupations, with light as both a metaphoric and metonymic device and the sea as offering a territory resistant to an empirical rational order of things, have informed my work over the last four years.
Between 1998 and 1999 I worked with material taken from the site of a wrecked cargo boat at Prawle Point in Devon. Alternatively exposed and covered by the tide, the site seemed a liminal place, situated between the fixed and the fluid.
While using a camera both above and below water line, I became interested in the ways in which light passing through and over the surface caused the camera to malfunction. Jeff Wall writes of a tension between the dry optics of the camera and the watery nature of chemical photography. Here it is a seepage of light which defeats the capacity of the camera to render the world transparent.
In subsequent works I have been curious to employ light in a manner which inverts its characteristic function as a source of 'illumination'. Using backlighting and light reactive paper to 'draw' a body resistant to objectification and as in 'the encircling of a shadow' Newlyn Art Gallery 2001 reversing lights so that they become instead sources of darkness.
My current interests continue an ongoing investigation into questions of presence and are focussed upon the motif of the shadow.
Rona Lee is currently an A.H.R.B. fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London, she has shown work at The Ikon Gallery, Cambridge Darkroom, Henie Onstad Museum, Oslo, in San Franciso, Quebec City and The Irish Museum of Modern Art.
Commissions have included work for Beaconsfield, Hull Time Based Arts,The Bluecoat, and Firstsite. She has received a wide range of grants and awards including in 2001, an Individual Artists Award from London Arts.
CURRICULUM VITAE
Selected solo and commissioned work |
2002 |
Breaking the Surface |
Hull Time Based River Commissions |
2001 |
H.A.P.P.Y. I & II |
Span 2, Dilston Grove, London |
|
the encircling of a shadow |
Newlyn Gallery, Cornwall. |
2000 |
Reasoning Backwards |
Dartington Arts Gallery, Devon. |
1999 |
CUT |
Henie Onsad Kunstsenter, Oslo |
|
s[H]elf II |
La Chambre Blanche, Quebec City, Canada |
|
Hidden Seas/ Surface Waters |
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin |
1998 |
s[H]elf I |
Cambridge Darkroom, |
1997 |
auto I nomos |
Bluecoat Arts Centre & Visionfest, Liverpool. |
|
PRESENT |
Hull Time Based Arts |
1996 |
SHRINKING the miniature |
Firstsite @ The Minories, Colchester |
|
DISORDERS |
Beaconsfield & St.Thomas's Hospital, London. |
|
BALLAST |
NOW 96, Bonnington Gallery, Nottingham. |
1992 |
There are those who have eyes but will not see |
|
|
Eros/Ares |
The Junction, Cambridge |
Selected other projects/ group shows |
2002 |
HAPPY |
Taxi Gallery, Cambridge |
|
History Revision |
Plymouth Arts Centre |
|
Artists Pages |
Performance Research, On Navigation |
2001 |
Natural Forces |
San Francisco Art Commissions Gallery. |
|
Generate |
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull |
|
Span 2 |
Dilston Grove, London |
2000 |
Forensic |
Museum of Installation, London. |
1999 |
s[H]elf I |
Cardiff Art in Time Festival . Cardiff |
|
|
Newlyn Gallery (Artsurgery) |
1998 |
Art Futures |
Contemporary Arts Society @ ART 98 |
1995 |
Avid Metamorphosis I |
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London |
|
Avid Metamorphosis II |
Dartington Arts, Devon |
1994 |
Avid Metamorphosis I |
National Review of Live Art, Glasgow |
1992 |
Dr-ama |
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham |
1991 |
Eros/Ares |
Now 91 Castle Museum, Nottingham. |
Grants, awards and residencies |
2001 |
Individual Artists Award |
London Arts |
1999 |
Artist's work programme |
Museum of Modern Art, Dublin |
|
Artist in Residence |
La Chambre Blanche, Quebec. May - June |
|
British Council Travel Award |
|
|
Arts Council of England |
Combined Arts Travel Award |
|
Arts Council of England |
Combined Arts Production Award |
|
Arts Admin New Media Bursary |
|
1998 |
ACE Combined Arts |
Research and Development Award |
|
Combined Arts.London Hybrid Award |
London Arts Board |
1996 |
First Time Publication Award |
ACE, Visual Arts |
1990 |
Artist in Residence |
Junction Arts Centre, Cambridge |
1985 |
Welsh Arts Council |
Young Artists Award |
1981 |
Welsh Arts Council |
Theatre Design Bursary |
Education |
1991-92 |
M.A.Critical Studies Art and Theatre |
Wimbledon School of Art |
1980-81 |
P.G.Dip Theatre Studies (Distinction) |
University College Cardiff. |
1977-80 |
B.A. English/ Drama |
Goldsmiths College, University of London |
Appointments |
>2003 |
AHRB Research Fellow |
Royal Holloway, University of London |
|
External Examiner, Time Based Media |
University of Wales Institute |
2001 - 2 |
Visiting Lecturer |
Wimbledon School of Art, Guildhall University |
|
|
UCC CORK, Falmouth College of Art |
|
Visiting tutor |
Space Place, London |
|
Visiting Fellow |
The Art Institute of Chicago |
1999 |
Visiting Reader, Time Based Installation |
University of Plymouth |
1993-00 |
Senior Lecturer |
Dartington College of Arts |
1991-00 |
Visiting Lecturer |
Wimbledon School of Art |
1992-3 |
Visiting Lecturer |
Dartington College of Arts |
1992 |
Visiting Lecturer |
Nottingham Trent University |
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Andrea Phillips, 'Doubling and disembling the self : the work of Rona Lee' and Gray Watson, 'Fuel for Speculations' - Rona Lee (The Publication), Firstsite, 1996 ISBN 0952907011
Jeni Walwin 'Disorders' in Low Tide - Writings on Artists Collaborations, Black Dog Publishing, 1997 ISBN 1901033856
Helen Potkin, 'Performance Art' in Fiona Carson & Claire Pajaczkowska (eds.), Feminist Visual Culture, Edinburgh University Press, 2000
Annual Report, Articule, Canada, ISSN 2 920306197, 2000
Nathalie Cote - Bulletin 24 - La Chambre Blanche, Canada 2001 ISSN 0820-781X
I Love Live Art (ed.) Mark Waugh, Arts Council of England, 2001
Max Andrews, Contemporary Visual Arts - Issue 34 2001
Performance Research Journal, On Navigation, Autumn 2001
CONTACT : ronalee@rona-lee.co.uk |
