Rachel Reid

Studio of Rachel Reid, North Norfolk coast, UK

Reid says, “My work reflects a madly varied life. I’ve lived all over the world, including war zones, as a human rights investigator and a journalist. Having spent years immersed in difficult subjects, situations and contexts, as an artist I often seek out levity and joy in my art, to balance out those dark experiences, but I also make works that are contemplative, political and empathetic.

Art has always been part of my life, but it’s only in recent years that I’ve slowed down my human rights and journalistic work, and stopped hurtling around the globe, to allow much more time for making. I now live by the sea in Norfolk, with a beautiful studio, where I finally have the time and space for my imagination to roam. I’m very lucky.

Recent work has been infused with social justice, such as my guerilla work “Royal Slavery,” (see website) which elicited calls for my arrest, has been taught in art schools and features in a book on art and culture (Monumental Lies by Robert Bevan). An aspect of the work was featured at a museum in Virginia in 2023. A work from a series on the environment is now owned and displayed at Loyola University in New Orleans, USA. I also have a sculpture at Harvard University – a piece I was commissioned to make in 2018 to commemorate the photographer Anya Niedringhaus, who was killed in Afghanistan. A work called "After," inspired by my experience as a human rights investigator in Afghanistan won the popular vote in the Social Art Awards in 2017, and features in a book on Social Art in 2017.

I have an MA (distinction) in Art and Politics from Goldsmiths (2020), a BA from Oxford University and previously studied at the Art Students League of New York.”

Rachel appeared in the summer edition of Art Seen Magazine, Issue 12. See details here

Learn more about the artist at www.rachelreidsculpture.com