Rachael Coward is an artist and curator working across installation, printmaking and book works, her interests lie in heritage, language, thresholds and place.
She creates environments and interventions that extend and alter a space’s intended uses, drawing on discrepancies uncovered and inventing possibilities for its future.
Recent projects include ‘The Gardener’s Labyrinth’; a site specific installation created responding to the relationship between built and natural structures at Enys House, Cornwall; ‘Outside / In’; A series of interventions playing with light and domestic objects at Back Lane West, Cornwall; and Curator in Residence at CAMP; exploring how an “exhibition” via post could open up new opportunities to provide increased access and engagement to artworks.
She is a former Co-Director of CAMP, a member-led network for the creative and visual arts community in Devon and Cornwall. She is also an art educator and facilitator, frequently working with young people and families. She has recently worked with Tate, Milton Keynes Arts Centre and the South West Heritage Trust. She currently lives and works in Cornwall.
"Place, and more specifically rurality is at the heart of my work. I use my practice to explore my sense of identity as a woman living and working in rural Cornwall. I have been creating monuments to my lived experience based on thresholds and markers I have been finding in everyday settings and extracting them, placing them into new contexts and transforming them. Duality is also a key theme in my work, and I enjoy exploring the grey area that sits in, around and between opposing forces; full/empty, internal/external, presence/absence, analogue/digital."
RESIDENCIES
September 2023 - Present - Truro School & The Heseltine Gallery - Truro, UK
May 2022 - Arts Culture Commune - Hayle, UK
March 2022 - The Cornwall Workshop - Helston, UK
September - November 2020 - CAMP Curator in Residence - Plymouth, UK
January 2019 - Back Lane West - Redruth, UK
February 2018 - Structures Residency at Newlyn Art Gallery - Newlyn, UK
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
October 2023 - January 2024 - The Spirit of Cornwall - The Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, UK
February - June 2023 - Cornish Maids - Newlyn Art Gallery, Newlyn, UK
April - May 2022 - 'The Co-Workers' - Part of Spike Island Open Studios 2022 - Bristol, UK
May 2022 - A New Folklore - Fish Factory - Penryn, UK
June 2019 - Island Exhibition - Enys House - Penryn, UK
February 2018 - Structures Residency at Newlyn Art Gallery - Newlyn, UK
May 2017 - Falmouth School of Art Degree Show - Woodlane Studios - Falmouth, UK
April 2017 - Gluten Free - Lamorva Basement Studio - Falmouth, UK
February 2017 - Art + Text - 44AD artspace - Bath, UK
September 2016 - Press Gang - Falmouth Art Gallery - Falmouth, UK
September 2016 - SWITCH - Porthmeor Studios - St. Ives, UK
March 2016 - THREE - Woodlane Project Space - Falmouth, UK
November 2015 - G.o F.igure - Lamorva Basement Studio - Falmouth, UK
June 2015 - Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition - Royal Academy of Arts - London, UK
May 2015 - Exhibition 1 - Woodlane Studios - Falmouth, UK
PROJECTS
March - June 2022 - CAMP on Tour - Various locations across Devon & Cornwall, UK
PERFORMANCES
June 2015 - The Drift - Tate St. Ives - St. Ives, UK
PUBLICATIONS
'Circuit: Test, Risk, Change'. Tate and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. 2019
'Family Think and Do Guide'. Newlyn and The Exchange Art Galleries. 2017
FEATURES
SWITCH zine - Tate Collective. 2016
Artist Profile - Seven Shades of Black Magazine. Edited by Megan Fatharly. 2016
G.o F.igure Review - Falmouth Art Zine (F.A.Z). Edited by Robert Ive. 2015
EDUCATION
2014 - 2017- BA (Hons) Fine Art, Falmouth University
View my university studio journal here
2013 - 2014 - UAL Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, Somerset College of Arts and Technology