Rachel Gordon
About
Rachel Gordon is a Scottish visual artist and curator currently based in London. Working with both analog and digital photographic processes, her practice is driven by phenomenological and material inquiries into care, longing, touch and what it means to be orientated within a space that we do not feel is ours; particularly spaces shaped by an intimacy which feels out of reach or may no longer exist.
Education
2021-2023 MA Photography, Royal College of Art
2017-2020 BA Photography, London College of Communication UAL
Upcoming
2023 'Overflow', Commercial Street Gallery, London (13-16 July)
2023 'RCA2023: Graduate Show', Truman Brewery, London (13-16 July)
Selected Features & Exhibition
2023 Fresh Eyes Talent, GUP Magazine
2023 ‘Third Floor’, Royal College of Art, London UK
2022 PORT Magazine, Issue 31
2022 ‘Photo50 Performance: Doing & Undoing Islands’, London Art Fair, UK
2022 RCA Work In Progress Show, Online
2020 FotoFilmic JRNL 6
2020 Winner, Simon Bishop Prize
2020 UAL Graduate Showcase, Online
2020 ‘Adrift’, Safehouse 1, Peckham, London UK
2019 ‘Environ’, Copeland Gallery, Peckham, London UK
2019 ‘Loading...’ The Art Academy, London UK
Statement
What’s the thought practice for what seems incomprehensible but then makes perfect sense?
– Kathleen Stewart and Lauren Berlant
Merging both autobiographical and fictional narratives, I am intrigued by the cognitive interplay between materiality and imagination. I navigate the visualisation of thoughts and experiences, contemplating the ways in which the personal and collective, whether in figurative or abstract form, become manifested or obscured within imagery. Working across representational and non-representational imagery, the physicality of darkroom processes is a crucial element of my practice; it allows for a distinct form of performative hapticality and tactile encounter with both physical and imagined space.
The Space Between Waves
Recently I have returned to a collection of images that I took between the ages of 18 and 24, which now feel both familiar and unfamiliar, undulating somewhere between the autobiographical and the collective. It made me think about navigating a space that doesn't feel entirely ours, particularly when shaped by a past intimacy that may no longer exist.
Through rhythm, marks and gestures, I respond to these images by creating formless space within the darkroom, exploring the complexities of emotion as a kind of flutter of the mind; an oneiric, attentive movement. Engaging with these mental constructs goes beyond verbal or visual representation, requiring an embodied language to organise, absorb and disseminate these memories of bliss and uncertainty which oscillate in my mind.
I unravel the relationship and distance between myself, my environment, and the materiality of the image, often responding to music and memorised or improvised movement. I work blindly both in a literal sense, in the pitch black of the darkroom, and the metaphorical, working with the resistance of the materials. Untethering these encounters and merging landscapes, both internal and external. The creative process in itself is a transformative incident; an unfolding of reality and an articulation of mind and body.
Medium: Silver gelatin prints and C-type prints, varying sizes, 2023
Thought Forms
Medium: Unique C-type prints, 2023
Size: 25x30cm
The Hands See, The Eyes Hold
