Approved: 24.07.2017

Rachael Clegg

Artist, Curator, Project manager, Publisher, Researcher

Approved: 24.07.2017

I am a journalist, writer and artist. And my artistic practice reflects this.

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  • Location: Sheffield, Yorkshire

Artist Statement

I am a journalist, writer and artist. And my artistic practice reflects this.

 

I am obsessed with facts, stories, interesting statistics and believe the hunt for this information as important as the outcome - be it a painting, a commission for an advertising campaign or a photograph. 

 

I love the act of thinking. The cerebral process that occurs between finding out the facts and creating an image is, for me, one of the most exciting things one can do. I enjoy tanslating knowledge into a visual, iconic language and am happy and fulfilled as long as my head is preoccupied with this practice. 

 

I have umpteen notebooks on the go constantly as notetaking and sketching is such a pivotal part of my practice (as it is with many artists).

 

The most challenging project I’ve had was a commission from a brake pad manufactuter - Ferodo. The company wanted me to communicate, for example, what a motorcycle air filter does in a creative and fun way. So after much deliberating, sketching and thinking I decided to chuck a load of toy parachutes from a high point with air filters attached to them. The inspiration came from a WW2 photograph of soldiers parachuting from the air. It was a beautiful shot, with parachutes scattered across the sky, and I sought to recreate that in a fun, playful way for one of the commission’s images. 

 

Various things motivate me to continue to practice. But first and foremost is my frustration with a society that seems less and less inclined to investigate things thoroughly. News is fed via 140-character Tweets and opinions are echoed - not challenged - on Facebook. I can't change the fact we live in a social-media, sound-bite obsessed society but I attempt to create my own ‘alternative’. My pictures are the equivalent of a ‘soundbite’ - images that embody history, facts and sometimes complex ideas in an absurd, surreal and - I hope - visually striking way. With a bit of text thrown in. But not too much (otherwise people wouldn’t read it). 

 

I hope that makes sense. 

 

Thank you, 

 

Rachael 

CV & Education

CV

 

1997-2005 

 

Tate Liverpool - workshop leader:

 

Designing and leading workshops for young adults. The workshops were based on the Tate’s permanent and temporary exhibitions and required a deep engagement with modern art and modern art theory. 

 

1999:

 

Tate Liverpool and BBC Merseyside: scriptwriting / directing 

 

I wrote and directed a radio play for BBC Radio Merseyside about the live of Salvador Dali. 

 

2003-2006 

 

Tate Liverpool: curatorial assistant / internship 

 

Assistant in exhibitions working on Mike Kelly’s Uncanny exhibition. The work included liaising with galleries across the globe and dealing with the exhibition’s curator and Tate Liverpool’s director. 

 

2003:

 

First class BA Hons in art history, University of York

 

2004: 

 

MA in art history, University of York 

 

2005-2011

 

Meade Hill EBSD School, Manchester, Harrop Fold, Salford, Whiston Grange Pupil Referral Unit, Rotherham: art specialist for children with behavioural issues

 

Art specialist working in schools throughout Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire for children and teenagers with emotional, behavioural and social behavioural issues. This required tailoring an art curriculum as a means of engaging the children. This was a rewarding the challenge: among the children were extremely violent individuals who had never sat down with a pencil and paper and a mute who only spoke when discussing art work. 

 

2006-2015 Sheffield Star, City Life, Manchester, Manchester Evening News, Leeds Guide, Sheffield Telegraph: music journalist 

 

2007-2014 Sheffield Star, Manchester Evening News, Sheffield Telegraph: features writer (full-time staff from 2009 at The Sheffield Star / Telegraph)

 

I researched and wrote many features for various titles until 2009, when I started writing almost solely for The Star, Sheffield. I was a featues / arts writer and worked with many artists and musicians in Sheffield to provide as music coverage and support for the arts in the regional press as possible. I wrote a feature spread a day - requiring me to think creatively and create lively, colourful copy. The research skills I developed in this job are integral to my art practice.

 

2011 - present Milestones TT series 

 

I have covered the Isle of Man TT Races as a journalist for many years and attended almost every single race since I was born. So in 2012 - during a train journey - I decided to create a series of images that celebrated the Isle of Man, its history and its quirkiness. I also knew I wanted each picture to tell a story and so researched hundreds of tales about various racers over the event’s 100 plus year history and presented each shot with explanatory text. 

 

2012: Milestones exhibition: The Sayle Gallery, Isle of Man 

 

2013: Space Mountain: the history of telecommunications 

 

Commission from a satellite company who wanted me to create an exhibition that told the story of the history of telecommunications, from the first telegraph to the latest satellite technology. 

 

The commission required a great deal of research as the history of telecommunications is so vast and far-reaching. But the real challenge was interpreting this history into 20 art photographs.

 

The commission evolved into an on-going series and I am still working with some of the core concepts to develop more images for a series to exhibit later this year. 

 

2014: Hailwood’s Height exhibition, Sayle Gallery, Isle of Man 

 

Exhibition on the Isle of Man to celebrate the life of motorcycle racer Mike Hailwood. I curated the show and collaborated with his son, David. Hailwood’s Height fused painting, archive material and new photographic work to create an exhibition celebrating the achievements of one of motorsport’s greatest sportsmen.

 

2015 - present: Sound Stories, project (ongoing)

 

A series of abstract oil paintings based on sound waves of famous racing machines, musical scores and other sounds. 

 

These huge canvases take the soundwave as the basic form but evolve into something else during the painting process.

 

To create them I search out particular sounds - whether atthe request of a client or to satisfy personal curiosity - and tranform the recording into a sound wave. This is then tranformed once again, only this time into an abstract painting that stays true to the wave form but also becomes an image that is just form for form’s sake. These paintings, in other words, fuse two very opposing elements of art theory: formalism and didactic documentation. 

 

2015: Molten Rock commission

 

This was a series of images for an off-road wheelchair company called Molten Rock. They wanted a photograph relating to each client, along with a short piece of text summing up their life thus far, with specific reference to their disability. This involved researching the causes of each client’s condition - whether C1 paraplegic as a result of food posioning or C2 paraplegic from a sky diving accident - and transforming this personal history into an image.

 

2015: Der Grüne Himmel series (shot on location in Germany)

 

I created a series of surreal images celebrating the history of one of the world’s greatest racing circuits, the Nürburgring. The history of this circuit spans some of the twentieth century’s biggest political cataclysms to some of the most dangerous racing on the planet, so researching and creating these shots was enormous fun. The series is called Der Grüne Himmel (the ‘Green Heaven’ - a spin on Jackie Stewart’s nickname for the Nürburgring as ‘the Green Hell’).

 

2015 to present: Der Grüne Himmel exhibition Nürburgring museum, Germany

 

The images from Der Grüne Himmel series are on exhibition at the Nürburgring’s museum. I had all the text panels translated into German for the show.

 

 

2016: Milestones 2016 project

 

A very different take on the previous Milestones work in that this series used archive photographs as backgrounds with new photographs ‘interacting’ with the historical shots. 

 

 

2016: Ferodo commission 

 

I created Ferodo’s advertising campaign for Ferodo after being given a very technical brief. The brief was to communicate the function of each of the company’s motorcycle products (such as brake pads, oil filters etc) and transform that into a creative, quirky image. I also wrote the captions for each image, as the text and image were interrelated. 

 

 

2016: A Strategy of Extraordinary Design, project 

 

In 2016 I collaborated with Yorkshire Artspace colleague Darren Richardson as part of his A Strategy of Extraordinary Design project. His project was about a future dystopia / utopia in which humans could purchase extra X-man like features and enjoy near-eternal youth. I dressed a charity shop window in-keeping with this parallel world and set up a photoshoot. The end result was a photograph shot in a manner as if it was taken from a newspaper.

 

2017: 37 and Three Quarters,  exhibition at the Isle of Man TT, Grandstand

 

I curated an historic and artistic exhibition at the IOM TT to celebrate the event’s 110th anniversary. Motul sponsored the show and we had artefacts on loan from various museums and manufacturers, such as Honda. It also featured solo photographic work from the last six years, serving as a retrospective of all the shots taken on the Isle of Man TT course. Artist Darren Richardson collaborated with me in the exhibition display design in helping create three huge ‘mobiles’ from which artefacts and artwork were suspended.