• Painter
  • Sculptor
  • Environmental Designer

About 

Rachel Fenner is a painter, sculptor and environmental designer. Born in Scarborough Yorkshire, she graduated from the Royal College of art (A.R.C.A.) in 1966 with a double first, under the guidance of Iris Murdoch as Rachel’s academic thesis supervisor and philosophy teacher. She has exhibited widely in London and throughout the UK. Since being appointed as City Artist for Portsmouth in 1980, she has worked as an Environmental Sculptor with a ‘hands on’ approach to making sculpture for the built environment. She also makes smaller domestic-scale sculpture, largely constructed in wood. Alongside these disciplines she works as a painter. Her paintings follow the Modernist tradition of English Romantic Abstraction and are largely inspired by the coastal landscapes of Pembrokeshire and Dorset. She has regularly exhibited her paintings in London since 1992.

Collections

Paintings

Before studying sculpture at the Royal College of Art, I devoted as much time to painting as I did sculpture and valued both disciplines equally. At the age of nineteen I won the David Murray scholarship for landscape painting; awarded by the Royal Academy of Art…

Sculptures

Much of my sculpture is integrated within the context of ‘whole environment’ projects; however, it also works independently of the whole space. These smaller carvings are the basis of my current studio practice and are the pieces that I most enjoy making…

Public Art

When presented with a new public art project my primary concern is to create a ‘sense of place’. Everything made is site specific, defined by scale, function, budget restraints and the needs of the client. Keeping a ‘hands on’ approach is really important to me and to the overall quality of the work…