Rachel Ara
The Self Portrait
Biography and Background
Rachel (from the series "Shad Thames Portraits"), 2016
Ara is a conceptual and data artist who explores the relationships between sex, gender, technology and systems of power. She graduated with a Fine Art degree from Goldsmiths College, London, where she won the prestigious Burston award. As a multi-disciplinary artist, she has a diverse skill set acquired from working 25 years in the tech industry to being a trained cabinet maker and combines them to make unique and often surprising installations and sculptures. The works are nonconformist with a socio-political edge that often incorporates humour and irony with feminist & queer concerns.
In 2016 she won the Aesthetica Art Prize 2016 for This Much I’m Worth, the self-evaluating artwork. Pulling on her experiences as a computer system designer, the digital sculpture draws on data and complex algorithms to calculate its own value in real time. In 2018 she was featured on the cover of the FT Wealth for her monumental version of the sculpture “This Much I’m Worth” that she engineered and built incorporating over 80 pieces of neon and a homemade animation system made from recycled materials.
In 2018 Ara was made Artist in Residence at the V&A Museum in London responding to their data. That year she also showed at the Whitechapel Gallery (“This Much I’m Worth (UK Version)”), Barbican Centre (“American Beauty, a Trump L’Oeil”), Humber Street Gallery (“The Ancestors)” and the V&A (“Transubstantiation of Knowledge”).
This year she is showing works at the MMCA in Seoul (Vertiginous Data), MAK Vienna (Vienna Biennial 2019), V&A and completing her first public sculpture commission in London (colLAB).
Ara currently lives and works in London.
In 2016 she won the Aesthetica Art Prize 2016 for This Much I’m Worth, the self-evaluating artwork. Pulling on her experiences as a computer system designer, the digital sculpture draws on data and complex algorithms to calculate its own value in real time. In 2018 she was featured on the cover of the FT Wealth for her monumental version of the sculpture “This Much I’m Worth” that she engineered and built incorporating over 80 pieces of neon and a homemade animation system made from recycled materials.
In 2018 Ara was made Artist in Residence at the V&A Museum in London responding to their data. That year she also showed at the Whitechapel Gallery (“This Much I’m Worth (UK Version)”), Barbican Centre (“American Beauty, a Trump L’Oeil”), Humber Street Gallery (“The Ancestors)” and the V&A (“Transubstantiation of Knowledge”).
This year she is showing works at the MMCA in Seoul (Vertiginous Data), MAK Vienna (Vienna Biennial 2019), V&A and completing her first public sculpture commission in London (colLAB).
Ara currently lives and works in London.