Miranda Forrester
Her work is concerned with addressing the invisibility of womxn of colour in the history of art and combating the fetishization of our bodies.
Miranda Forrester’s practice explores the queer black female gaze in painting, relating to the history of men painting womxn naked. Her work is concerned with addressing the invisibility of womxn of colour in the history of art and combating the fetishization of our bodies. She has been investigating how her identity impacts the way in which she depicts her subjects, and how her paintings can rearticulate the language and history of life drawing through a queer black feminist desiring lens, and in doing so, depict what the male gaze cannot see. Her use of stretching plastic over stretchers and painting on highly primed smooth surfaces is fundamental to the work, as it allows the viewer to see through the pictured bodies; the surface becomes more than skin, allowing the figures to become real and alive, moving and breathing on the canvas. This layering of transparent materials alludes to the complexities and nuances of womanhood and femininity; gender and sexuality.
Exploring the significance of domestic environments for queer people, Forrester’s paintings capture intimate, insular moments of warmth and tenderness. Animating large expanses of emptiness with vibrant, fluid and assertive lines, her bold figures occupy their space with authority yet subtlety, speaking to the strength in vulnerability. Lines and translucent brush strokes roam across her paintings, often spilling onto the wall behind and around the stretcher, gathering complex and shifting observations into the nature of identity. The work, altogether, is a celebration of womxn’s bodies, the joy in occupying feminine identities and being in relation with one another.
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Based in London, UK
Education
2019 - BA Hons Fine Art Painting, University of Brighton, UK
2016 - Art Foundation, University of the Creative Arts Epsom, UK
Solo Exhibitions
2020 Abode, Guts Gallery, London
Group Shows
2021 At Peace, Gillian Jason Gallery, London (upcoming)
2021 Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, London (upcoming)
2021 Sixty- Six London, St George’s Place, London
2021 Reality Check, Guts Gallery, London
2021 Poetic Sustenance, Tiwani Contemporary, London
2021 Every Woman Biennial, Copeland Gallery, London
2021 Top 100 (The Auction Collective), London
2021 Works of art inspired by Love, AucArt (online)
2021 When s**t hits the fan again, Guts Gallery (online)
2021 Miranda Forrester & Emily Moore, Phoenix Brighton
2021 Narrating Life, Studi0 gallery, St Moritz, Switzerland
2020 Pending, San Mei Gallery, London
2020 Antisocial Isolation, Saatchi Gallery, London
2020 Begin Again, Guts Gallery, Online exhibition raising funds for The Free Black Uni
2020 Blacklisted: An Indefinite Revolution, Christie’s Education, London
2020 FBA Futures, Mall Galleries, London
2019 PLOP End of residency show, The Koppel Project, London
2019 BBZ Alternative Graduate Show, Copeland Gallery, London
2019 University of Brighton Fine Art Painting Degree show, Brighton
2019 Mercurial Matters: The Organic Feminine, Lock-in Gallery, Hove
2019 How did we get here - Decolonising the Curriculum, Brighton University, Brighton
2019 International Womxn’s Day exhibition, Creative Debuts, London
2019 Material Practices, Hove Museum and Art Gallery, Hove
2019 Emerging Artist Award, Pop up gallery, Brighton
2018 Scapes, Trace queer art collective, The Marlborough Theatre, Brighton
2018 Conjecture, University of Brighton, Brighton
2018 Fragments, Norman Rea Gallery, York
2018 Pink season, Pop up gallery, Brighton
2016 Foundation Show, University for the Creative Arts, Epsom
Collections
Soho House collection
Arts council collection
Beth Rudin DeWoody collection
Fairs
Art x Lagos, Nigeria, 2021
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DAZED features latest Guts exhibition, REALITY CHECK
Emily Dinsdale, DAZED, 21 Sep 2021 -
Top Ten Shows from the UK and Ireland
Mimi Chu, Frieze, 12 Feb 2021 -
ON VIEW BY FLASH ART: “It’s 2020 For F*ck Sake” Guts Gallery and Soft Punk / London
Flash Art , 11 Dec 2020 -
IT’S 2020 FOR F*CK SAKE
ART PLUGGED, ART PLUGGED, 30 Sep 2020 -
Begin Again: The online exhibition challenging austerity and racial oppression
Scarlett Baker , Love Magazine, 13 Aug 2020 -
Scrap that, lets begin again
TJ Sidhu, The Face, 13 Aug 2020 -
Begin Again is the virtual art exhibition tackling racial inequality
Gunseli Yalcinkaya, Dazed , 14 Aug 2020
