This week, we have been looking at Donald Rodney, a British artist and leading figure in Britain’s BLK Art Group of the 1980s who became recognised as “one of the most innovative and versatile artists of his generation.”
We learned that Rodney was born and raised in Birmingham, England. He studied Fine Art at a university in Nottingham and then did a Postgraduate Diploma in art London. Rodney had sickle-cell anaemia which is a blood disorder which stops your blood from carrying oxygen around your body. He was interested in hospital x-rays and used them in his work. He also explored issues of racial identity and racism in his art.
‘In the House of My Father’ is a close-up photographic image of Donald Rodney’s hand, in which sits a minute sculpture of a house. It is a little statue of a house made of his skin! Which is linked in to his and his father’s struggle with sickle cell anaemia. We created our own versions of Rodney’s ‘In the House of My Father’ using card and our own designs.
