Donald Gladstone Rodney (18 May 1961 – 4 March 1998) was a British artist. He was a leading figure in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

BLK Art Group The BLK Art Group is the name associated with a group of five influential conceptual artists, painters, sculptors and installation artists based in the United Kingdom. Keith Piper, Marlene Smith, Eddie Chambers Claudette Johnson and Donald Ro ...

of the 1980s and became recognised as "one of the most innovative and versatile artists of his generation." Rodney's work appropriated images from the mass media, art and popular culture to explore issues of

racial identity A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...

and

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

Early life and career

Rodney was born and raised in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He completed a pre-degree course at Bournville School of Art and went on to complete an

honours degree Honours degree has various meanings in the context of different degrees and education systems. Most commonly it refers to a variant of the undergraduate bachelor's degree containing a larger volume of material or a higher standard of study, or ...

Fine Art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

Trent Polytechnic Trent may refer to: Places Italy * Trento in northern Italy, site of the Council of Trent United Kingdom * Trent, Dorset, England, United Kingdom Germany * Trent, Germany, a municipality on the island of Rügen United States * Trent, California, ...

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

, graduating in the mid-1980s. There, he met Keith Piper, also from Birmingham. Piper was to influence Rodney's work towards more political themes. The works of Rodney and Piper, alongside

Eddie Chambers Edward Chambers (born March 29, 1982) is an American former professional boxer. He challenged once for a unified world heavyweight title in 2010. He was ranked as the fourth best heavyweight in the world by '' The Ring'' at the conclusion of 200 ...

, Marlene Smith and

Claudette Johnson Claudette Elaine Johnson (born 1959) is a British visual artist. She is known for her large-scale drawings of Black women and involvement with the BLK Art Group. She was described by Modern Art Oxford as "one of the most accomplished figurativ ...

became recognised as a distinct movement within British art, known as the

, whose attachments were to social and political narratives. In 1987, Rodney completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Multi-Media Fine Art at University College London's

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

Death and legacy

Rodney had

sickle-cell anaemia Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a group of blood disorders typically inherited from a person's parents. The most common type is known as sickle cell anaemia. It results in an abnormality in the oxygen-carrying protein haemoglobin found in red blo ...

, a debilitating disease that grew steadily worse during his life. This led to an interest in discarded hospital X-rays and other medical themes that began to inform his work. Rodney used X-rays as a metaphor to represent the "disease" of

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

and racial discrimination in society. On 4 March 1998 Rodney died from the disease. After his death, Rodney's work was shown in the prestigious British art show ''5''. He was also included in the show ''Give and Take, Works Presented to Museums by the Contemporary Art Society'' held at the

Harris Museum The Harris Museum is a Grade I-listed building in Preston, Lancashire, England. Founded by Edmund Harris in 1877, it is a local history and fine art museum. History In the 19th century, it became legal to raise money for libraries by local ...

and the

Jerwood Gallery The Hastings Contemporary is a museum of contemporary British art located on The Stade in Hastings, East Sussex and is a not-for-profit organisation. The gallery opened in March 2012 as the Jerwood Gallery and cost £4m to build. The gallery c ...

(2000). Photographer

Brenda Agard Brenda Patricia Agard (20 August 1961 – 29 October 2012) was a Black-British photographer, artist, poet and storyteller who was most active in the 1980s, when she participated in some of the first art exhibitions organized by Black-British ar ...

is interviewed in the 1995 film ''Three Songs on Pain Light and Time'', about the life and work of Rodney as part of the Black Arts Video Project series by the Black Audio Film Collective. In 2003 Rodney's papers were donated to the Tate Archive. The exhibition ''Donald Rodney - In Retrospect'' took place at Iniva,

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, 30 October–29 November 2008.Iniva
"Donald Rodney In Retrospect"
Iniva, 2017.

References

External links

* Donald Rodney
People Directory
Iniva, 2017. * Eddie Chambers
"Black British artists who should be better known"
The IB Tauris Blog, 7 August 2014.
Donald Rodney biography and timeline
Tate Britain, 2004.
eight notebooks and sketchbooks written and created by Donald Rodney, and the personal archives of the artist 1982–98''
Tate Archive * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rodney, Donald 20th-century British painters British male painters Black British artists Alumni of Nottingham Trent University 1961 births 1998 deaths Deaths from sickle-cell disease Artists with disabilities Alumni of the Bournville College of Art 20th-century British male artists