Raksha Patel (b.1972, Leicester) studied MFA Painting at The Slade School of Art (1998).
Patel works as an artist, writer, socially engaged practitioner and lecturer. She worked for the Learning Department at Tate Britain (1999-2011); The Learning Department of the British Museum (2015-2020) as an Artist in Residence at Whitechapel Gallery (2005) and at The Pitzhanger Manor (2013).
She has two decades of teaching with a focus on inclusivity, anti-racism, and decolonising art-histories. These topics have been unpicked and navigated through using gallery and museum collections that act as levers to springboard ‘difficult’ conversations.
The under-representation of works made my Black British and British South-Asian visual artists in UK public art collections led to the research project ‘British Asian Visual Art Post Cool Britannia’ for British Art Network (Tate and the Paul Mellon Centre funded by The Arts Council England) (2021 to present).
Her drawings and paintings focus upon the lived experiences of the British South-Asian diaspora, migration histories and the nuanced nature of identity. The imagery in her work derives from in archives (both personal and public) that is merged with remembered accounts, which are re-enacted and photographed before translating into painting. Layered with imagery of the changing architectural landscape and natural spaces, her work intersects with gentrification and climate change from post-colonial and Eastern spiritual perspective.
Her work is in both private and public collections.
BA Fine Art Painting
www.rakshapatel.co.uk
Place of Birth Unavailable – podcast Raksha Patel in conversation with Alice Correia for the UAL Decolonising Arts Institute.
Re-Tracing Localities, Diversity in the Public Realm for City Hall Mayor of London
British Asian Visual Art Post Cool Britannia